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Comment by fjabre | Hacker News Reader

Why do people automatically assume this has anything to do with journalism?

What if it's about one company illegally obtaining the trade secrets of another and then releasing that trade secret to a global media?

The whole thing smelled fishy to begin with. I honestly can't say what I believe. However, if this was some kind of setup and they find evidence that Gizmodo intended to steal that prototype then that would definitely explain the police raid.

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Gawker's COO is arguing on that basis (http://gizmodo.com/5524843/)

Reading that warrant makes me not regret the full-disk encryption on every computer in my house. It makes the computer slower, but it removes any incentive to remove the device from my home. (And it removes the ability of my own computer to incriminate me.)

It does not remove the ability of law enforcement to serve a search warrant and carry your computers out the door, nor does it remove the ability of a judge to plant you in a jail cell until you cough up the passwords. What it does do in create an incentive for anyone who does serve a search warrant upon you to look very, very closely at the contents of the drive once you do provide the password -- if you thought the inconvenience of full-disk encryption was this important then they are likely to think that they will find some child porn or tax evasion documents buried in there somewhere.

nor does it remove the ability of a judge to plant you in a jail cell until you cough up the passwords

It's true, encryption doesn't remove this ability. The reality is that the Constitution never provides this ability in the first place, and specifically prevents the government from passing any law that would provide this ability.

Refusing to testify against yourself (without a grant of immunity, anyway) is not a crime, it's your right.

The unencrypted contents of your hard drive constitute evidence, not testimony.

I believe in the US you can still be legally compelled to give up the encryption key(s), and simply held in contempt (indefinitely?) until you do.

I disagree. See my post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1296381

Isn't that covered by the 5th Amendment (not 100% sure, I'm not American)?

The 5th Amendment says that you can't be compelled to incriminate yourself, but I don't think that covers everything. If you have a safe in your house and the police have a search warrant for the contents of the safe, I think you are legally required to turn over the combination or key.

I remember hearing about this being used as a justification by a judge in a case relating to encryption. It's just sad that most cases involving encryption / computer crimes are related to child porn charges so people are more worried about punishing the person than they are about protecting the rights of everyone that is brought into the court system.

Oh I see, thanks. I didn't realize this kind of jurisprudence was linked to the child porn issues. Obviously that's a commendable reason to add exceptions to the 5th amendment.

Yes, but only if they know there to be an encrypted partition. Because all encrypted data passes a Chi^2 randomness test you cannot (really cannot) distinguish between empty space on an encrypted partition and a different encrypted partition inside an encrypted partition.

So when they find a drive that passes the Chi^2 randomness test they know there has to be encrypted data on there, so you give them the key and they decrypt the outer ring (which contains nothing important). At that point they're stuck. They suspect there's got to be more to it, but they can't point to anything and say "decrypt this!", because there isn't anything to point to. So technically, they have to let you go. Or so I heard.

Because there's:

- a news organization

- matters of public interest

involved?

Are the specs of the 4th iPhone truly a matter of public interest? Interest != curiosity in this context. If a journalist has a source that says a state governor is selling senate appointments, that is in the public interest because the public has an interest (is a stakeholder) in clean government. If a journalist gets a stolen toddler toy that turns out to be covered in lead paint, the public has an interest in (is entitled to) knowing not to buy the toy.

The iPhone will come out in July (or whenever) irrespective of you knowing two months in advance its specs. Nothing changes. Nothing will be hidden. There is no "public interest". It's just idle curiosity, and it's not journalism to pander to it to the extent of participating in a very dodgy transaction.

Courts around the world have ruled that the sex lives of celebrities is in the public interest.

I personally don't agree with this, and you may not either, but that doesn't matter.

Courts around the world have ruled that the sex lives of celebrities is in the public interest.

Reference? The ones I have been aware of have been very narrow, and there have been many public cases of the opposite (such as the recent Max Mosley case in the UK).

Generally the law seems to take a line similar to that of Wikipedia - that "public interest" means "general welfare". Note that this does not mean you can't publish details about the sex lives of celebrities, but you can't use public interest as a defense if you have participated in a crime to do so.

'Public interest' is a slippery term. Certainly the public is interested in smartphones, or there would be no audience for the story. But does the public have an interest in the intellectual property of manufacturers? Only in the most tenuous sense - state or federal workers' pension funds might be partially invested in Apple's stock, for example.

But it would be hard to argue that this story was presented with the aim of improving the public welfare, as you might if the contents of some confidential government documents were reported or publicized.

If a company can't keep its own secrets it should be their problem. We give protections to patents and copyrights for a reason.

We also give protections to trade secrets for a reason.

If Apple is claiming trade secret protection, they need to demonstrate that they attempted to protect the secret. Apple authorized taking the phone into the public. These "secrets" were not taken from the Apple campus or workplace.

I believe that if I have a briefcase full of confidential documents, it would be logical that I can leave my workplace with them without them suddenly not being trade-secrets anymore. I can bring them to the airport. I can put it on a chair next to me while I eat and if I forget them, they are not suddenly considered open.

To me, the point of this law is that the finder's-keepers attitude is encouraging theft. I think "I found it" is a common alibi for theft. If you get rid of that alibi (which doesn't harm people who would return the items) then you discourage actual theft by making it harder to buy and sell.

The only people who are inconvenienced are those who truly did find an item and keep it. There's an exemption for items of small value so as not to burden those people too much. That's just my view of it.

Are you talking about trade secrets or theft?

Gizmodo never disputed that the phone was Apple's property and they returned it to Apple as soon as Apple claimed it. If Gizmodo physically damaged the phone they should be responsible for the damage caused to the device.

I actually don't see a huge problem if I lose my phone, someone else pays $5000 to the finder and then turns around and returns it to me when I demonstrate that it is mine.

Taking photos of the device isn't the issue. Anyone could easily have taken a photo of the phone at the bar. If you are saying the visual appearance of the product is a trade secret then it should not be paraded about in public by employees.

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