Man jailed over computer password refusal

[Gibbo]

BBC News - Man jailed over computer password refusal

[DAZZD88]

Shows me he's guilty and has something very serious to hide.

[FN-GM]

The chances are he got a lighter sentence than he would have got if he had given it to them.

 

I would like to know what software he used. Shows it must be good!

[DAZZD88]

I would like to know what software he used. Shows it must be good!

 

You have something incriminating you want to hide then? Lol.

[FN-GM]

sssshhh!

[Domino]

er -no.

 

the only thing he's guilty of is failure to disclose his password. He may well be hiding something else, but they can't prove that.

 

Living in London and working in the city I'm regularly stopped by police and asked where/what I'm doing - to which I always reply "I don't have to tell you". almost always causes an argument or worse - but why should I have to disclose something like that with no reason? I wouldn't mind but I know its all to do with the way I look, the same way I can't go through an airport without being searched.

 

Its getting more and more like Terry Gilliams 'Brazil' round here.....

[TopBanana]

suprised that they havent cracked it yet tbh

[Butters]

Probably has something to hide but if the police asked me for my password they wouldn't get it.

 

Giving out your password is like letting people have a poke around inside your mind.

[DAZZD88]

@Domino why hide information that is not incriminating? I don't see the point. I mean, if you were some sort of secret agent on a mission then fair does but when you're just some average Joe walking along a street.

[tmcd35]

suprised that they havent cracked it yet tbh

 

Er, 50 characters. It may take em sometime to brute force that one Heres hoping he's just used alphanumerics to save them a bit of time...

[Domino]

@Domino why hide information that is not incriminating? I don't see the point. I mean, if you were some sort of secret agent on a mission then fair does but when you're just some average Joe walking along a street.

 

Because they have no legal right to ask me that. Surely you can see that letting them walk all over everyone is a bad thing?

 

I'll quite happily help in any way I can should it be something actually important - but stopping me in the street while I'm walking to work? they can stick it.

 

have a read here Innocent in London - 'Suspicious behaviour on the tube' and here Panicky Plod apologises to Innocent Terror Techie ? The Register to see what can happen when the police think they can get away with something

[Guest salan]

Whilst the guy probably has something to hide, This reminds me of the term that REALLY sticks in my throat.

" If you have nothing to hide then whats the problem"?

When I suggest that the said person gives me their bank acount details for me to look at their bank acount transactions as 'if you have nothing to hide...'

They always refuse!!

Having something that you dont want the world to know and doing something ileagal are two VERY dif things!!

I am also curious as to what software he has used.

Its a balance between obstructing police/helping a criminal act and your personal liberties.

In this case why not suggest that he unlocks it so that a 'neutral person' could look and see if it has anything to do with the police investigation or not. If it has then the police get to see, if not (even if criminal), then they dont get a look in.

There is no correct answer for this, but I keep remembering what has been said.

Freedom is very easy to loose and nearlly impossible to get back.

Alan

[Domino]

Er, 50 characters. It may take em sometime to brute force that one Heres hoping he's just used alphanumerics to save them a bit of time...

 

How do they know its a 50 character phrase?

 

I imagine that's how big the input box is ;-)

[CyberNerd]

Because they have no legal right to ask me that. Surely you can see that letting them walk all over everyone is a bad thing?

 

but they do have a legal right to ask for your passwords, seize computers and monitor online activity.

[tmcd35]

I am also curious as to what software he has used.

Alan

 

My first guess would be Truecrypt. I know that can encrypt drives on boot, not sure how secure it is though?

[Domino]

but they do have a legal right to ask for your passwords, seize computers and monitor online activity.

 

I'm not disputing that, not to say that its something I agree with.

[CyberNerd]

My first guess would be Truecrypt. I know that can encrypt drives on boot, not sure how secure it is though?

 

If he was using truecrypt he would have claimed 'plausible deniability'and he wouldn't have gone to jail:

Plausible Deniability

[TopBanana]

Er, 50 characters. It may take em sometime to brute force that one Heres hoping he's just used alphanumerics to save them a bit of time...

 

surely they would go to the maker of the stick and they would have the way to open the encryption ?

[Guest Guest]

Because they have no legal right to ask me that. Surely you can see that letting them walk all over everyone is a bad thing?

 

Have you seen this before? If not I suspect you'll enjoy it

 

YouTube - The Police - Your Freindly Guides

[tmcd35]

If he was using truecrypt he would have claimed 'plausible deniability'and he wouldn't have gone to jail:

Plausible Deniability

 

Not necersarrily. If the password is on boot and he didn't use the hidden volume feature then he is denying is password. If he used a hidden volume then the question becomes why not give out the non hidden volume password?

[Gibbo]

Whilst the guy probably has something to hide, This reminds me of the term that REALLY sticks in my throat.

" If you have nothing to hide then whats the problem"?

When I suggest that the said person gives me their bank acount details for me to look at their bank acount transactions as 'if you have nothing to hide...'

 

I'm a believer in the "nothing to hide" philosophy and wouldn't have a problem with showing you my bank account. All you'll see is my salary going in and purchases at Tesco for food and Shell for fuel!

 

The amusing thing is that if / when the police do crack his password and find something, he'll probably get more jail time if there's anything suspect!

[bladedanny]

I don't like the idea of someone snooping around my personal things and wouldn't like to disclose my password to anyone. But if it was a case of proving my innocence I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[russdev]

More importantly he is going to jail and key here is that as not charged with sex crimes so will go to 'normal' prison. It will of course become known that the police looking into a crime to do with "child sexual exploitation" and child sex offenders in a normal prison (non-maximum that hold child sex offenders) do not get it light.

 

Russ

 

p.s

 

Edited to make more sense..

Edited October 6, 2010 by russdev
as messed the english right up ;)

[teejay]

I'm not quite sure on the exact details of the RIPA act for this, but if the police have to get approval from the courts first in the same way they need for a search warrant, then I don't have a problem with it and he deserves to go to jail. If the police can just demand the password without it being approved by the courts, then that's just plain wrong and I would be kicking off about it as well.

[JPS]

So, forgive my lack of knowledge/experience on these things. I have just used TrueCrypt to encrypt a partition on my laptop. I have set aside about 10Gb for this, where in my case I plan to store some data that is school related. When I log into windows xp, the encrypted partition is not even visible. I have to run TrueCrypt and then mount the device, then enter the password.

 

So if I had something to hide, whatever it may be, legal or illegal, I would presumably reveal my windows login credentials and nothing more. Everyone else then being none the wiser of my 10Gb of 'private' data?