Man jailed over computer password refusal

[localzuk]

Not for taking photos, no. However, wasting police time is something I enjoy, and for me it is worth a night in the cells. I enjoy reading.

 

The PACE regulations are a laugh a minute...

[GrumbleDook]

The PACE regulations are a laugh a minute...

 

Of, sweet $deity ... that they are. The fun you can have with correct process during interviews being recorded. It makes me laugh when you watch Eastenders et al when they do police related stuff. If some of the public misconceptions are due to misrepresentation by the Media then Eastenders is a prime example.

[Fatmas]

16 weeks for not disclosing your password? Disgusting.

A huge fine and/or prison time for mp3's, films etc.. that could be in the encrypted partition? Even more disgusting.

 

He should of claimed he had forgotten it.

 

I don't think the police can ask him again, it is also highly likely they will never crack his password if it's 50 characters long:

 

Assuming punctuation !@#*($ Numbers 1203981023981 and the Alphabet are available and you're using a standard PC.

That's 4.36 thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years (That's really long).

 

Even if every PC on earth was used to crack that password it would still take a **** ton of years to brute force.

Edited October 7, 2010 by Fatmas
Formatting

[somabc]

A fifty character password would probably be a phrase or a easily remembered sequence from a well known set of characters.

 

Example would be say using PI to pick a word from each consecutive page of the bible and using the first letter of that word. Essentially a very random appearing password (virtually uncrackable) that you can reproduce without ever having to write anything down. Any book would do and any number.

 

I think you'll find his password is abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890abcdefghijklmn

[Martin]

He should of claimed he had forgotten it.

 

He did claim that he had “forgotten” the password (see Teen locked up after failing to give police computer code and i am surprised that the jury found him guilty - unless they had been advised/instructed by the judge otherwise!

 

It is rather worrying that "Janet Ironfield, defending, said it was not known whether the computer was subsequently sent off to an expert bureau for analysis or whether it had simply sat on a shelf throughout the seven month period." - surely on such an important matter no stone would be left unturned

 

mb

[mpe]

why hide information that is not incriminating? I don't see the point.

 

So you'd be quite happy to let anyone see your bank statements, your medical history, all your employment records, your family tree, etc, etc?

[mpe]

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.

 

How is stopping people at random in the street and asking where they work going to help catch criminals or prevent crimes in the first place?

 

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

 

Hassling innocent members of the public tends to be considerably easier (and safer) for the police that going after actual criminals. This is likely to be worstened if police officers are given "quotas" for arrests, etc.

[mpe]

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!

 

IIRC Jeremy Clarkson though the same until he published his bank account details and someone was able to set up a direct debit against his account. That's just with the name, account number and sort code. There's considerably more information on the average bank statement which could be used maliciously.

[Fatmas]

I think whether you have anything to hide or not is irrelevant. I wouldn't let the police have any of my passwords and would do anything I could to stop that happening. I have nothing to hide but it's my personal information.

 

 

The guy in question should have used a "dummy" encrypted OS with a hidden OS inside that one, As long as you use the dummy OS every so often it's almost impossible to detect the hidden OS.

 

You can then give them the password for the dummy OS quite safely.

 

Personally, I haven't set up any encryption so my Windows system is not secure at all! (password or not)

[jjoe90]

A password is there to enforce secracy, if this is not needed because of the good old reason, " well if you have nothing to hide tell em your password" if everybody had nothing to hide then what would be the need for passwords, and "not just the guy in the BBC article" everyone has the right to stroe information, just becuase some one says well tell me if you have nothing to hide, that does not mean yo9u give it to them, as it is there, your data, stored behind your password for a secracy reason.

 

Maybe this guy is a secret gay or something of the sort, and has a stash full of DVD's. Now before people say, what a stupid reason, something like that could well be true, and what ever the reason is, he doesn't want to give it

[DrummerBoy]

The thing that ranckles me about this act is that I have the right to remain silent, apart from when they decide to take this right off me!! Not much of a right then is it?

[Gibbo]

Maybe this guy is a secret gay or something of the sort, and has a stash full of DVD's. Now before people say, what a stupid reason, something like that could well be true, and what ever the reason is, he doesn't want to give it

 

Yeah, but you have to weigh up the options - do you want people to possibly know you're a "secret gay" or definitely know you're a suspected paedo? I know which people would come to terms with more easily. If CEOP wasn't mentioned in this story, it wouldn't be as serious and would eventually blow over. But this guy is going to be labelled for life now because of it.

[Fatmas]

He won't be labelled for life if he doesn't get convicted. All his record would have to say is the relevant part of the act and the media forget things very quickly.

 

 

When he is released in 16 weeks there won't be any coverage. Nobody will remember his name.

[zag]

When your arrested they do say you have the right to remain silent.

[mpe]

True - unfortunately the converse is also true

 

just because they wear a police uniform doesn't mean there aren't judgemental and arrogant idiots among them

 

Rather worst that that, considering the death of Ian Tomlinson. The gunmen who killed

Jean Charles de Menezes wern't even wearing police uniforms.

[mpe]

But if acused of illegal activity surely you'd want to put as much evidence of your innocence forward.

 

Assuming you trusted the police. Plenty of people have good reasons to distrust the police in general, specific police forces and specific police officers.

 

Such reasons could include the killing of members of the public without the police officer(s) concerned being tried for muder; bungling the investigation of a high profile case; failing to respond to 999/112 calls; being so busy trying to "frame" someone that that an actual criminal is ignored.

[mpe]

Sorry, just sprayed my keyboard with coffee laughing at that.

A lot of police are very nice, honest people, trouble is there are a lot of vindictive in the police as well.

 

There's also the issue of criminals who are also police.

[ICT_GUY]

You should never talk to the police, or volunteer information. The more your give the more they can use against you. There has been a fair bit of research into this.

 

Police powers

[localzuk]

Assuming you trusted the police. Plenty of people have good reasons to distrust the police in general, specific police forces and specific police officers.

 

Such reasons could include the killing of members of the public without the police officer(s) concerned being tried for muder; bungling the investigation of a high profile case; failing to respond to 999/112 calls; being so busy trying to "frame" someone that that an actual criminal is ignored.

 

I don't trust the police, due to experience of every officer I've dealt with being a liar.

 

I've been lied to to try and get me to delete photographs,

I've been lied to about why our car was stopped,

I've been lied about in a court by a police officer,

I've seen a friend lied about by a police officer in court,

I've seen a police officer randomly throw a man to the ground and kick him, then arrest him and then lie about it on the report,

I've been followed based purely on my beliefs, with no prior criminal record,

I've had my house raided on flimsy evidence (ie. someone with a beard was seen at our university near an office which was ransacked, and considering I both studied there and worked there, and was verifiably elsewhere at the time, there was no evidence).

I've had university documents destroyed with the goal of 'getting a fingerprint', rather than simply asking if they belonged to me.

 

The list could go on and on.

 

I also don't trust judges, either at lay-judge level, district judge level or any other. They aren't willing to stick their neck out, they are often biased, and prejudiced (again based on experience).

 

So, why should I ever trust the police with any information?

[somabc]

You can modify truecrypt so that if you enter the wrong password (just once) it destroys all the data. You can also assign multiple user's \ passwords so that each user views different files when decrypted and there would be no way to prove how many users there were.

[Simcfc73]

Have they checked underneath his keyboard for a sticky bit of paper with his password on. Or tried passwordpasswordpasswordpasswordpasswordpasswordpassword

[GrumbleDook]

In general I do trust police ...

 

I trust them for getting a friends bike back when I was 14.

I trust them for helping get a thug put away who stabbed a friend

I trust them for taking the time to stop me and remind me to put my lights on when riding my pushbike so I don't get hit by cars

I trust them for catching the drunk-driver who hit me in a hit and run when I was 11

I trust them for dealing with the idiot boy racers who live round the corner and who had been racing along our narrow round with cars parked either side

 

I will hold the accountable for their actions, but will provide any information they require for their investigations.

I accepted at an earlyish age that *I* am the one they tend to stop and ask questions of, even when out with one of my brothers ... a 6' 5" white Rasta who has been in a few too many fights for him to be called a 'looker' anymore. I just have one of those faces. They are doing a job, and random stops are part of it. I rarely get stopped by the same copper twice ... and if I do I have a laugh about it with them.

If they want to see my family tree ... they are welcome to. The pictures of squirrels are amusing and the leaves very pretty. I will ask them afterwards why ... and if there is not a reasonable answer they I will follow it up.

 

I will not allow them to criminally damage my property.

I will not allow them to use excessive force, but I will not give them a reason to have to do so.

 

I have been stopped and breathalised randomly ... on a pushbike.

I have been pulled over for speeding ... on a pushbike.

 

I have seen police brutality, but I have also seen it dealt with and the git thrown out of the force.

Believe me when I say some of the things coppers hate most are crooked cops, bullies, violent idiots, and small-minded, self-interested, egotistical gobshites with no common sense.

Since the start of the 60s the forces across UK have grown institutionally racist, sexist, homophobic and narrow-minded. The emphasis has been to protect 'The State' and I know folk that got out for that reason ... but most people I know are there to protect and serve the public ... and they try not to be personal about stuff ... and try to apply common sense ... but sometimes it is a case of how the are told to 'enforce the laws' when laws change is poor.

 

I will always give police the benefit of the doubt, the same way I would a teacher in the classroom, a firefighter, an airline stewardess ... people are asked to do a job, and whilst I might not always agree with what they are doing or how they go about it, I know that there are ways and means to hold people accountable and I will use them.

[CyberNerd]

lol from slashdot:

 

I think I'll make my passphrase "I don't remember". That should make for a fun interview.