Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, 2009-03-03 at 21:33 -0500, Ivan Krsti? wrote: > If you give me the benefit of the doubt for having a reasonable > general grasp of the legal system and not thinking the judge is an > automaton or an idiot, can you explain to me how you think the judge > can meet the burden of proof f

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:05:32 -0800 John Gilmore wrote: > > I would not read too much into this ruling -- I think that this is a > > special situation, and does not address the more important general > > issue. > > In other cases, where alternative evidence is not available to the > > government

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

* Stephan Somogyi: > At 13:08 -0500 03.03.2009, Adam Fields wrote: > >>When compelled to give out your password > > Unless I'm misunderstanding the ruling, Boucher is not being compelled > to produce his passphrase (like he could under RIPA Section 49 in the > UK), but he is being told to produce

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

"Marcus Brinkmann" writes: >* The safest thing to do is to do a clean operating system install before >traveling. If you have an appropriate netbook (about 50% support this, check your manufacturer and model type), unplug the SD card containing the OS image and replace it with the SD card contai

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

Adam Fields wrote: > On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 12:26:32PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> Quoting: >> >>A federal judge has ordered a criminal defendant to decrypt his >>hard drive by typing in his PGP passphrase so prosecutors can view >>the unencrypted files, a ruling that raises seri

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

"Perry E. Metzger" writes: >[Explanation of why courts aren't Turing machines] Very nice explanation. The name I've used for this (attempted) defence is the Rumpelstiltskin defence, for reasons that should be obvious (and at some point I'll get around to finishing the writeup on this, which I g

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Mar 3, 2009, at 6:38 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote: So, the court is not going to pay the least attention to your elaborate claims that you just like storing the output of your random number generator on a large chunk of your hard drive. They really don't give a damn about claims like that. Actua

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

> I would not read too much into this ruling -- I think that this is a > special situation, and does not address the more important general > issue. > In other cases, where alternative evidence is not available to the > government, and where government agents have not already had a look at > the

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

To more fully quote Adam's question: > When compelled to give out your password, you give out the one that > unlocks the partition full of kitten and puppy pictures, and who's to > say that's not all there is on the drive? > > Is there any disk encryption software for which this is common > practic

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

Ivan Krstić writes: > On Mar 3, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> If it is obvious to you and me that a disk has multiple >> encrypted views, then you can't expect that a court will not be able >> to understand this and take appropriate action, like putting you in a >> cage. > > Why do

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Mar 3, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote: If it is obvious to you and me that a disk has multiple encrypted views, then you can't expect that a court will not be able to understand this and take appropriate action, like putting you in a cage. Why do you think it'd be obvious to you an

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Mar 3, 2009, at 1:08 PM, Adam Fields wrote: Is there any disk encryption software for which this is common practice? In terms of fairly widely used software, yes, TrueCrypt offers hidden volumes: I asked the same original question on

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

At 02:45 PM 3/3/2009 -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote: On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:53:50 -0500 "Perry E. Metzger" wrote: > > I'll repeat: the law is not like a computer program. Courts operate on > reasonableness standards and such, not on literal interpretation of > the law. If it is obvious to you a

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:53:50 -0500 "Perry E. Metzger" wrote: > > Adam Fields writes: > >> Well, it should be clear that any such scheme necessarily will > >> produce encrypted partitions with less storage capacity than one > >> with only one set of cleartext. You can't magically store 2N bytes

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

With regards to alternative "runtime" decryptions, recall ... http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Chaffing.txt The claim is that the approach is neither encryption nor steganography. Cheers, Scott - The Cryptography Mailing List

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On 2009-03-03, Stephan Somogyi wrote: There is a chasm of difference between being compelled to produce keys, which could be subsequently reused with other encrypted material, and being compelled to produce specific unencrypted data, which is much more narrowly scoped and therefore less intrus

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

Adam Fields writes: >> Well, it should be clear that any such scheme necessarily will produce >> encrypted partitions with less storage capacity than one with only one >> set of cleartext. You can't magically store 2N bytes in an N byte >> drive -- something has to give. It should therefore be re

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 01:20:22PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > Adam Fields writes: > > The privacy issues are troubling, of course, but it would seem trivial > > to bypass this sort of compulsion by having the disk encryption > > software allow multiple passwords, each of which unlocks a diff

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

At 13:08 -0500 03.03.2009, Adam Fields wrote: When compelled to give out your password Unless I'm misunderstanding the ruling, Boucher is not being compelled to produce his passphrase (like he could under RIPA Section 49 in the UK), but he is being told to produce the unencrypted contents o

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

Adam Fields writes: > The privacy issues are troubling, of course, but it would seem trivial > to bypass this sort of compulsion by having the disk encryption > software allow multiple passwords, each of which unlocks a different > version of the encrypted partition. This sort of thing has been

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 12:26:32PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote: > > Quoting: > >A federal judge has ordered a criminal defendant to decrypt his >hard drive by typing in his PGP passphrase so prosecutors can view >the unencrypted files, a ruling that raises serious concerns about >

Re: Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:26:32 -0500 "Perry E. Metzger" wrote: > > Quoting: > >A federal judge has ordered a criminal defendant to decrypt his >hard drive by typing in his PGP passphrase so prosecutors can view >the unencrypted files, a ruling that raises serious concerns about >s

Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

Quoting: A federal judge has ordered a criminal defendant to decrypt his hard drive by typing in his PGP passphrase so prosecutors can view the unencrypted files, a ruling that raises serious concerns about self-incrimination in an electronic age. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10