Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-08 Thread Jerry Leichter

On Oct 7, 2010, at 1:10 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote:



a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
what was on his hard drive.



What about http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability
Could this be used?

Sure. And the technology used would have no effect on the standard

... used in court:

I think you're not getting the trick here: with truecrypt's plausible
deniability hack you *CAN* give them the password and they *CAN*  
decrypt
the file [or filesystem].  BUT: it is a double encryption setup.  If  
you

use one password only some of it gets decrypted, if you use the other
password all of it is decrypted.  There's no way to tell if you used  
the

first password that you didn't decrypt everything.  So in theory you
could hide the nasty stuff behind the second passsword, a ton of  
innocent

stuff behind the first password and just give them the first password
when asked.  In practice, I dunno if it really works or will really  
let

you slide by.

You're thinking too much about the technology.

The court demands a company turn over its books.  The company denies it
keeps any books.  Sure - massive fines, possible jail sentences for the
principals.

Alternatively, the company turns over fake books.  There is evidence  
that the
books are fake - they show the company only did 2000 transactions last  
year,
but somehow the company paid a staff of 200 to take phone calls last  
year.
Or the books don't show any payments for things that we see sitting in  
the

warehouse.  Or maybe there are just purely statistical anomalies:  The
variation in income from week to week is way out of the range shown by
other businesses.  Or there's just someone who swears that these are not
the books he's seen in the past.  Same outcome for the company.

Maybe the high-tech cheats let you get away with stuff; maybe they  
don't.

Then again, maybe the fake paper books let you get away with stuff, and
maybe they don't.  Technology lets you play some games more easily,
but it's not magic pixie dust that immunizes you from reality.

-- Jerry

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-08 Thread Samuel Weiler

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010, Nicolas Williams wrote:

If decryption results in plaintext much shorter than the ciphertext -much 
shorter than can be explained by the presence of a MAC- then it'd be fair to 
assume that you're pulling this trick.


Not to argue with your overall point re: crypto not protecting citizens from 
their states, but I disagree with the above in the case of truecrypt, which is 
what was being discussed.


I have many unencrypted drives (or partitions) that are only partially 
full. It's quite plausible that an encrypted drive would not be very 
full.  (I thought I might need more space later. or well, I had all 
of this space...)


Moreover, possession of software that can do double encryption could be 
considered probable cause that your files are likely to be encrypted with it.


There's a lot of software I use daily which has features I never touch.  I use 
the alpine MUA, but I never have it fetch mail from a POP server, I don't use 
message scroing, etc.  Maybe the suspect selected truecrypt because it works on 
all of linux, MacOS and Windows, unlike so many other such tools.  And is free, 
unlike BestCrypt.  There are many plausible reasons for selecting that tool 
that have nothing to do with the double encryption feature.


-- Sam

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-07 Thread Christoph Gruber
Am 06.10.2010 um 22:57 schrieb Marsh Ray:

 On 10/06/2010 01:57 PM, Ray Dillinger wrote:
 a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
 disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
 what was on his hard drive.
 
 I am thankful to not be an English subject.


What about http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability
Could this be used?

-- 
Christoph Gruber
If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. Phil Zimmermann

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-07 Thread Jerry Leichter
On Oct 7, 2010, at 4:14 AM, Christoph Gruber gr...@guru.at wrote:
 a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
 disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
 what was on his hard drive.
 
 What about http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability
 Could this be used?
Sure. And the technology used would have no effect on the standard used in 
court:  Is there sufficient convincing evidence that there's data there to 
decrypt (e.g., you used the system in the last day to send a message based on 
the kind of information sought)?  If so, decrypt or go to jail.  Beyond a 
reasonable doubt isn't the standard for everything, and even of it were, it's 
as understood by a judge or jury, not a logician. 
 -- Jerry

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-07 Thread Bernie Cosell
On 7 Oct 2010 at 12:05, Jerry Leichter wrote:

 On Oct 7, 2010, at 4:14 AM, Christoph Gruber gr...@guru.at wrote:
  a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
  disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
  what was on his hard drive.
  
  What about http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability
  Could this be used?
 Sure. And the technology used would have no effect on the standard
 ... used in court:

I think you're not getting the trick here: with truecrypt's plausible 
deniability hack you *CAN* give them the password and they *CAN* decrypt 
the file [or filesystem].  BUT: it is a double encryption setup.  If you 
use one password only some of it gets decrypted, if you use the other 
password all of it is decrypted.  There's no way to tell if you used the 
first password that you didn't decrypt everything.  So in theory you 
could hide the nasty stuff behind the second passsword, a ton of innocent 
stuff behind the first password and just give them the first password 
when asked.  In practice, I dunno if it really works or will really let 
you slide by.

  /Bernie\


-- 
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:ber...@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--  Too many people, too few sheep  --   



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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-07 Thread Nicolas Williams
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 01:10:12PM -0400, Bernie Cosell wrote:
 I think you're not getting the trick here: with truecrypt's plausible 
 deniability hack you *CAN* give them the password and they *CAN* decrypt 
 the file [or filesystem].  BUT: it is a double encryption setup.  If you 
 use one password only some of it gets decrypted, if you use the other 
 password all of it is decrypted.  There's no way to tell if you used the 
 first password that you didn't decrypt everything.  So in theory you 
 could hide the nasty stuff behind the second passsword, a ton of innocent 
 stuff behind the first password and just give them the first password 
 when asked.  In practice, I dunno if it really works or will really let 
 you slide by.

There is no trick, not really.  If decryption results in plaintext much
shorter than the ciphertext -much shorter than can be explained by the
presence of a MAC- then it'd be fair to assume that you're pulling this
trick.  The law could easily deal with this.

Plausible deniability with respect to crypto technology used is not
really any different than plausible deniability with respect to
knowledge of actual keys.  Moreover, possession of software that can do
double encryption could be considered probable cause that your files
are likely to be encrypted with it.

Repeat after me: cryptography cannot protect citizens from their states.

Nico
-- 

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-07 Thread Marsh Ray

On 10/07/2010 12:10 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote:


There's no way to tell if you used the
first password that you didn't decrypt everything.


Is there a way to prove that you did?

If yes, your jailers may say We know you have more self-incriminating 
evidence there. Your imprisonment will continue until you prove that 
you've given us everything.


If no, your jailers may say We know you have more self-incriminating 
evidence there. Your imprisonment will continue until you prove that 
you've given us everything.


Get it?


So in theory you
could hide the nasty stuff behind the second passsword, a ton of innocent
stuff behind the first password and just give them the first password
when asked.


If the encrypted file is large, and disk file fragmentation patterns, 
timestamps, etc. suggest it has grown through reallocation, the 4 KB 
grocery list you decrypt out of it is not going to convince anyone.
On the other hand, if you produce a sufficient amount of relatively 
incompressable image, video, or encrypted data from it, you may be able 
to convince them that you've decrypted it all.


- Marsh

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English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread Ray Dillinger
a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to 
disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see 
what was on his hard drive.  

I suppose that, if the authorities could not read his stuff 
without the key, it may mean that the software he was using may 
have had no links weaker than the encryption itself -- and that 
is extraordinarily unusual - an encouraging sign of progress in 
the field, if of mixed value in the current case.

Really serious data recovery tools can get data that's been 
erased and overwritten several times (secure deletion being quite
unexpectedly difficult), so if it's ever been in your filesystem
unencrypted, it's usually available to well-funded investigators 
without recourse to the key.  I find it astonishing that they 
would actually need his key to get it. 

Rampant speculation: do you suppose he was using a solid-state 
drive instead of a magnetic-media hard disk?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

Bear


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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread Marsh Ray

On 10/06/2010 01:57 PM, Ray Dillinger wrote:

a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
what was on his hard drive.


I am thankful to not be an English subject.


I suppose that, if the authorities could not read his stuff
without the key, it may mean that the software he was using may
have had no links weaker than the encryption itself


Or that the authorities didn't want to reveal their capability to break it.

Or that they wanted to make an example out of him.

Or...


-- and that
is extraordinarily unusual - an encouraging sign of progress in
the field, if of mixed value in the current case.

Really serious data recovery tools can get data that's been
erased and overwritten several times


Really? Who makes these tools? Where do they make that claim?

Wouldn't drive manufacturers have heard about this? What would they do 
once they realized that drives had this extra data storage capacity 
sitting unused?


I see this idea repeated enough that people accept it as true, but no 
one ever has a published account of one existing or having been used.


 (secure deletion being quite unexpectedly difficult)

Sure, but mainly because of stuff that doesn't get overwritten (i.e., 
drive firmware remaps sectors which then retain mostly valid data) not 
because atomic microscopy is available.



, so if it's ever been in your filesystem
unencrypted, it's usually available to well-funded investigators
without recourse to the key.  I find it astonishing that they
would actually need his key to get it.


What makes you think these investigators were well-funded?

Or they wouldn't prefer to spend that money on other things?

Or that they necessarily would have asked the jailers to release the 
teen because they'd been successful in decrypting it. Perhaps their plan 
was to simply imprison him until he confesses?



Rampant speculation: do you suppose he was using a solid-state
drive instead of a magnetic-media hard disk?


SSDs retain info too. Due to the wear leveling algorithms they're quite 
systematic about minimizing overwrite.


But I doubt any of that is an issue in this case.

- Marsh

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread Ben Laurie
On 6 October 2010 11:57, Ray Dillinger b...@sonic.net wrote:
 a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
 disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
 what was on his hard drive.

16 weeks, says the article.

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread Joss Wright
On 06/10/10 19:57, Ray Dillinger wrote:
 a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to 
 disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see 
 what was on his hard drive.  

Just to correct this: the sentence was 16 weeks, not 16 months.

The legislation in question is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act of 2000 (RIPA), part III of which has been in force in the UK since
2007. This allows for a maximum sentence of two years for refusing a
request that encrypted data be put into an intelligible form.

Reference here: http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/RIP_Act_Part_III

Joss

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread Arshad Noor

On 10/06/2010 03:55 PM, Joss Wright wrote:


The .. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (RIPA), ..
allows for a maximum sentence of two years for refusing a
request that encrypted data be put into an intelligible form.



Five years, if a national security or child indecency case.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/53

Arshad Noor
StrongAuth, Inc.

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Re: English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

2010-10-06 Thread silky
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 5:57 AM, Ray Dillinger b...@sonic.net wrote:
 a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
 disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
 what was on his hard drive.

 I suppose that, if the authorities could not read his stuff
 without the key, it may mean that the software he was using may
 have had no links weaker than the encryption itself -- and that
 is extraordinarily unusual - an encouraging sign of progress in
 the field, if of mixed value in the current case.

 Really serious data recovery tools can get data that's been
 erased and overwritten several times (secure deletion being quite
 unexpectedly difficult), so if it's ever been in your filesystem
 unencrypted, it's usually available to well-funded investigators
 without recourse to the key.  I find it astonishing that they
 would actually need his key to get it.

Interesting.

It's interesting to think about the possibilities some sort of
homomorphic cryptosystem would offer here. I.e. it would be arguably
useful (from one point of view) if they were able to search the data
for specific items, and failing finding items of those types, *then*
the fallback is this sentence, otherwise it seems like a pretty
trivial way out for anyone wishing to hide bad activity.


 Rampant speculation: do you suppose he was using a solid-state
 drive instead of a magnetic-media hard disk?

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

                                Bear

-- 
silky

http://dnoondt.wordpress.com/

Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy — the joy
of being this signature.

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