The [British] government said today it does not know their fate.
The power to force people to unscramble their data was granted to authorities in October 2007. Between 1 April, 2008 and 31 March this year the first two convictions were obtained.
The disclosure was made by Sir Christopher Rose, the government’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner, in his recent annual report.
The former High Court judge did not provide details of the crimes being investigated in the case of either individual – neither of whom were necessarily suspects – nor of the sentences they received.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it was unable to track down information on the legal milestones without the defendants’ names.
Failure to comply with a section 49 notice carries a sentence of up to two years jail plus fines. Failure to comply during a national security investigation carries up to five years jail.
Thanks Uncle Dave. I rarely strike close enough to the gravamen to draw you out.
How long do you have to talk?
Ahhh, seriously. If you think being able to keep objective evidence a secret, like your fingerprints, dna, safety deposit box, home safe, is necessary or even close to “being free” then you have an expansive view of liberty.
Can you begin to “IMAGINE” what society would look like over time if “confidential records” by the mere labeling or securing thereof could be withheld from government? Don’t think of YOURSELF, or purveyors of kiddie porn, or even the occasional plotter of Oklahoma Bombing plots.
Don’t think of organized crime.
Do think about our political leaders and corporations. What monstrous evils would be protected under your scheme of things??????
Why do you love/trust/empower our government/corporations so much Uncle Dave?
((PS–Please forgive my nascent efforts at html coding.==edit out if you please.))
“The disclosure was made by Sir Christopher Rose, the government’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner”
This guy sounds like a voyeur. I can just picture him looking in convent windows at night and fap, fap, fap, fap, fap.
Looks like your coding didn’t work out bobo the clown. lol
Good point Uncle D. But simplified, freedom is becomming a thing of the past.
Growing up in America I was fed the notion of the people make the laws and we are free. Took me 35 years or so to fully understand that influence makes the rules and the “people” have no say whatsoever, if that makes any sense.
(Refer to the “I’m just a bill” spots on Saturday morning cartoons in the past) Would’ve been nice if someone would have told me as a kid it was all BS!
You have money, you have power. You have power you make the rules. Enough power and you can enslave the people.
Spiraling out of control nowdays. Just look to the thousand page bills put up by government “officials” designed to screw us all.
It’s a sad time for America and the world.
@Bobbo
We may have “laws” but are they moral? Do we have NO expectation of privacy anymore? In the future will only criminals have privacy? I truly do not like were this country is headed. Mark my words. There will be bloodshed in the future just like Oklahoma City (or worse) because of the erosion of our basic liberties. I am not saying I want it to happen. But happen it will.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. – Thomas Jefferson
#34–Improb==whats “moral” about allowing organized crime/our government/terrorists/common criminals/corporations to keep data bases free from discovery by court monitored police and investigators?
What is “basic” liberty versus “extended stupidy beyond the rational.”
Well, I think you and Uncle Dave are well motivated but really kinda naive/paranoid about what legitimate aspects of privacy are versus an understandable but irresponsible desire for anonymity.
There, I’ve said it for the second if not third time.
Instead of REPEATING YOURSELVES, why don’t you try something new and actually ENGAGE the argument being made?
bobbo,
I do have an expansive view of liberty and freedom. As I said, we have decided to exchange them for safety from ____ (fill in the blank with the boogyman of the day, real or imagined). In doing so, we also provide the government with the tools to implement tyranny.
SB,
Yes, freedom is definitely becoming a thing of the past. Unfortunately.
I just got off a plane a couple of hours ago, so that’s enough for one night’s wishful dreaming.
Case in point, bobo the clown still makes no sense.
seacrest out! it’s been fun!
I don’t think they ever considered the issue of hard drive encryption, but they did pass the whatever amendment that said we all, our bodies, persons, papers, and stuff would be free from “UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE ABSENT PROBABLE CAUSE.”
How you chicken little nihilists get from that to your little secrets should be beyond the reach of the law is nothing but a fantasy.
You understand what a fantasy is don’t you?
This is why everything needs to be encrypted — email, web surfing, chat and hard disks — BY DEFAULT.
Right now, if you use encryption, it flags you.
C’mon Geeks! Build security into all our tools!
bobbo,
I guess the framers of the Constitution believed in fantasy, too, otherwise they wouldn’t have written it as they did.
Enjoy your safety from the bad guys and lack of freedom!
@bobbo
If the courts and police have only your encrypted documents as the basis of a prosecution they really aren’t doing their jobs are they? It sickens me that someone can be compelled open their personal documents for police perusal but if you have a conversation about the same information with your lawyer or priest it is sacrosanct. That sir, is frakked up.
#41–Uncle Dave==reread my post. From the Bill of Rights you think you know but obviously don’t:
IV – Right of search and seizure regulated
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
You see, our Founding Fathers IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY did not want assholes running around thinking they could keep secrets.
Have a good night’s sleep and join us again tomorrow.
#42–Improb==I agree. It is ridiculous that lawyers and priests were able to secure special anti-truth telling legislation for themselves. You won’t find it in the Constitution though. Our Best of All Possible Founders knew what scallywags lawyers and priests are.
No constitutional protection for them==just statutory.
#42–Improbus said, on August 12th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
@bobbo
If the courts and police have only your encrypted documents as the basis of a prosecution they really aren’t doing their jobs are they? /// Thats correct and totally irrelevant here. You aren’t reading the link, the post, or this thread.
You can take a sealed envelop, or an encrypted hard drive, into a police station and go: “lah, lah, hal–I’ve got my secret private thoughts written down here and YOU can’t see them.” and you would be right.
The police need PROBABLE CAUSE to swear out a search warrant and have it approved by a judge attesting to their basis to believe a CRIME has been committed and your envelop is relevant to that crime. Then and only then can it be seized. And if its an encrypted hard drive, the password has to be provided.
Its what our Freedom Loving Founding Fathers wanted. A Balance between freedom and duties. Anarchy and Law.
“You cannot have freedom without laws.” etc.
Think about it.
Hey, we are talking about something that happened in Britton. We in the US kicked there authoritarian royalist asses out of this contry and our lives 200 + years ago. They don’t have a constitution to protect the local government and personal freedom (the Magnacarta only applies to the Lords and Ladies). They are getting what they deserve. There citizens never insisted on a form of government that is legally compeled by a constitution or similar devise to make the protection of those freedoms a requirement.
It has not happened here yet. If it does, we in the US have a considerable history of dealing with tyrants by what ever means necesary.
nunyac
The difference between passcodes and DNA or fingerprints is you can’t “forget” your DNA or fingerprints.
#47–Uncle Fatso==you raise a factual dispute, not a legal one.
Try to stay on topic.
way to show a biased and opinionated point of view.
what so nobody noticed that this has actually been happening in america since shortly after 9/11?
just an fyi – but people have been arrested at border crossings and airports entering america with laptops/mobile devices becuse they refuse to give up passwords
devices have been taken and not returned – in some cases for over a year, hampering the ability of non americans to do business both while in the country and after they have returned home – on the auspices of ‘checking the contents’
some in business outside america view it as a thinly veiled attempt to gather trade secrets from visiting businessmen for use by american corporations (there was at least one account where sensitive business data was apparantly used by an american firm and the only place it could have come from was the ‘impounded’ laptop of a foreign competitor)
The data on a computer hard drive or any other digital storage device is an extension of your thoughts and of your very MIND. The authorities have no more right to access that than they have to read your thoughts. In any event, it’s the right and DUTY of each American (actually, every sentient life form) to protect his thoughts and expressions, the law be damned.
For those who would like information on protecting their porn from their wives I suggest Truecrypt. You can generate encrypted files, encrypted volumes or make a bootable system drive. The later has the effect of speeding up your system because of the way Truecrypt handles disk drive access.
It is actually the hidden volume that gives you the most protection. It allows you to give away the outer volume password with bullshit in it so it looks like you rolled over and took it up the ass for the LEOs while your porn or illegal activities are safe from prying eyes in the hidden volume. It’s called plausible deniability. Different passwords and hashes and encryption strength can be used for each one.
If you want to transmit data or chat safely without prying eyes then use Hamachi. It encrypts the traffic and connects the machines on your secure network using network addresses not used by the Internet. Once you establish a link from the central server and setup your network all encrypted traffic is direct without going through any central server which lends itself to LEOs walking in with a warrant and intercepting the traffic. (I have verified this is the way it works as well as Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte on the Security Now Podcast.)
Why do I post this information? To help people protect their information of course.
As for having some dickweed LEO ask for my password, no problem, they just get the outer volume and they can look at pictures of butterflies and read my poems.
I like to protect all my rights and not just the ones that the left or right think I should care about at the time. I have marched on a capital building, purchased legal firearms forced warrants for searching my (empty) bags and kept my mouth shut.
The US Constitution, catch it.
Its what our Freedom Loving Founding Fathers wanted. A Balance between freedom and duties. Anarchy and Law.
That is the problem nowadays. There is NO balance. When it comes right down do it the police get what they want and some times the only thing that will stop them is a video camera.
As a side note, how long to you think it will be before it is illegal to video government and law enforcement officials and post it on the Internet? They already have something similar in the UK.
#53 Improbus said
“As a side note, how long to you think it will be before it is illegal to video government and law enforcement officials and post it on the Internet? They already have something similar in the UK.”
Not long at all since the Messiah Obomba is getting bad press (not from the MSM mind you) and people are catching the stupidity on cell phones and putting it up on Youtube. His “dead-fish” buddy won’t put up with it.
Messiah Obomba is nearly as funny as the Chimperor.
He is still working on it.
#31
Bobbo, your analogy to fingerprints and DNA is specious. Those are items of observable evidence.
A much better analogy relates to tacit knowledge that only you posses. Should a person be compelled to testify to all the laws they have broken which only they know about in their head? That is the equivalent of forcing someone to decrypt their drive.
#51
TrueCrypt will not protect you from all law enforcement. It is not as if they also do not know about TrueCrypt. With physical access to your hard drive, they’ll find your hidden partition and compel you (presuming they are allowed) to decrypt it along with the visible partition.
#56 Thomas
Truecrypt will protect anyone who is still protected by the Constitution. Of course with the shredding the last administration did and now this idiot (Obomba) setting fire to what was shredded I don’t expect it to hold out long.
# 56 “A much better analogy relates to tacit knowledge that only you posses.”
Thomas, It can’t be tacit knowledge if you have written your thoughts and ideas down.
Keeping encrypted e-mail and files is really no different to having written papers and mail locked away in a safe. The same rules should surely apply. If the authorities have sufficient evidence and a court order to get the key and access your house-safe what are they to do when documents are held in digital form?
“Should a person be compelled to testify to all the laws they have broken which only they know about in their head?”
Of course not. But, if your paper diary/journal in your house-safe testifies to all the laws you have ever broken, I would suggest you don’t write such things down.
#57
Presuming the Constitution protects us against the scenario mentioned in the article, I agree. Still, whether the partition is visible or no makes no difference in your protection. Only the encryption protects you.
#58
Yes and no. Suppose they confiscate your diary that you wrote in your own personal shorthand (effectively encrypting it). Should you be compelled to decipher it for them? You cannot be forced to help law enforcement understand information that might incriminate you. That is a right that no government can give nor take away.
# 59 Thomas,
Hmm, good point. I hadn’t thought about it that way – I think you are right.
The article doesn’t say under what circumstances they can demand the keys so I went looking. It seems that a crime doesn’t actually have to be committed for the court order to be granted. The law lists the following grounds:
(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime; or
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.