preferably I'd be able to configure certain directories that should be wiped, so only confidential data is destroyed.
then it would log in normally. I doubt silly borderguards would realize the pwnage
But many individuals do what they can. Consider the increase in encryption use.
If we leave law aside and think only in terms of "sides," that means that he is "opposed" to these governments, and it would only make sense for them to be hostile to him using their powers (arrest, taking his laptops, etc).
Now let's continue to leave the law aside, because that's what our governments can do when they please, usually by not telling us (Snowden showed us this several years ago in no uncertain terms).
So, human rights or no, a hidden-partition mechanism is merely allowing a civilian to use the same tools a government is - non-legal ones. In an ideal world, everybody (governments and civilians) would follow perfectly fair laws. That's not this world, those aren't our governments, so we all should be open to resorting outside the legal system to protect ourselves.
Why not instead just refuse, and use the technicality of violation of privacy, to beat the authorities by making anything they find inadmissible in the first place?
(I'm assuming US-centric here, of course.)
But if you are protecting your privacy (personal documents etc.) or your companies privacy (source code, plans, etc.) then you've still lost.
The deletion password would work, as long as they don't image the drive first and use your software to decrypt.
More info in this question: https://superuser.com/questions/986387/why-does-my-ssd-inter...
If this wasn't the case, you do these sorts of obstructions to trick officers into never laying charges for the crime you committed. You might respond, "well shouldn't they be charged with the crime they committed in that case, not the obstruction stuff?" And they can be charged for that as well, but often the obstruction, especially the destruction of evidence, makes it impossible to actually get a conviction.
Right, technical cleverness is the lawyer's job. If you get arrested on any serious charges in the US politely tell the police that you need to speak to a lawyer.
You still don't have to answer questions and should never answer questions until you can consult with a lawyer.
The classic video from a law professor and former criminal defense attorney, with a response from an active police detective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
"I will never talk to a police officer under any circumstances"
Given that most people talk too much to the police most of the time without dire consequences (police have a lot of flexibility in what they can do with your volunteered information, it's a two-edged sword) a more careful cost-benefit analysis of saying nothing or saying certain things is irresistible to smart tech people. If you're going to take the principled 'never talk under any circumstances' approach you need to have thought of various situations so you can make that principle work the most for you and not let it become an unnecessary cost.
... or destroys evidence with the intent to interfere with an investigation (usually) by a law-enforcement, governmental, or regulatory authority.
Better that way then they won't dig more into the phone.
I'm not a lawyer, but that was my interpretation in case that's wrong.
There wasn't a crime, until you deceived officers. It doesn't matter if you deceived them to cover up a crime, or to protect your privacy, or just for fun, it's still illegal.
This being illegal is equally as bad them searching devices in the first place without just cause.
> For all the authorities know, it was a clean device i.e., brand new
Just because you can get away with something doesn't mean it isn't a crime.
Lying to or misleading investigators is a crime, I don't know how to be more clear than that.
I would argue their invasion of privacy is a crime but no one is watching the watchers, thus these types of measures are going to be used.
The argument is that authorities can't force you to lie to me, in order to get your machine unlocked. And you don't need to lie to them, either.
But of course, you'd need to trust me implicitly ;)
But even so, once I had remote SSH access to initramfs, and had unlocked LUKS, I could mount /root and mess with the system, adding my own trusted key for remote access, etc.
So basically, users would need to trust me fully.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly sure they can compel me to lie to you. I think the standard is that the police can, at least with a warrant, compel you to do anything that you would do normally. For instance, if you're a company that keeps a database of user actions, they can compel you to give them access to that database, because accessing that data is a part of your normal business process. They can even compel you to write some software to extract the specific data they need (within reason). And in your scenario, I am able to access my own computer, and do so regularly as part of my normal life.
You probably came up with this scenario thinking about so-called "warrant canaries," which hinge on law enforcement not being able to force companies to lie to their users. But it should be noted there is no case law or precedent regarding warrant canaries, and the legal consensus seems to be it is unlikely to hold up in court.
listen to the hummingbird, whose wings you cannot see,
listen to the hummingbird, don't listen to me.
#LeonardCohenpic.twitter.com/PZisFt6mHm
— riseup.net (@riseupnet) November 11, 2016
How about this. When you use my FDE as a service, part of my payment is selling your computer to me for a nominal fee. So you're never using your computer, you're using mine. And my lease agreement requires confirmation that you're not under compulsion.
Fantasizing a bit, one can imagine a multi-probe EEG net that could report your state of mind. Perhaps the remote processor could be trained to recognize coercion, nervousness, etc.
You can't have a "no cops" requirement in a lease agreement, that wouldn't be remotely enforceable.
> Fantasizing a bit, one can imagine a multi-probe EEG net that could report your state of mind
Ordinarily, at this point, the warrant would then be given to you, not me. This is complicated by the fact that you presumably are trying to stay anonymous and there are questions of jurisdiction. But they will at least try to contact you and compel you to give them access. If you refuse now you're committing a crime, and they'll go after you. So you'd better hope your OPSEC is solid. And, after a certain point of ridiculousness, they might go after me, saying I purposefully used this system to elude lawful requests for access (which would be true!). That's going to be tricky to prove, and at that point I don't have enough legal knowledge to figure out if that holds up.
And anyway, as said elsewhere, at some point you are opposing a government. And if you're opposing in a strong way, then well, you basically declared war and you'll have to fight the Goliath. Thus before attempting any fight, make sure you have a very good network of supporters...
Technology won't help :-(
So I'll use Tor and Tox to hide myself as long as possible. But when the bad guys rings my bell, I know the only way out is to burn everything. They won't be deterred by some 2048 bits password...
Based on an OPSEC risk assessment, it may seem rather unlikely that the NSA and other national intelligence agencies are adversaries. Why would they care about Mirimir?
However, I find it useful to assume that they are. And so I employ many countermeasures that might seem foolish. Basically, I do whatever is workable. And then I write about it for income and pleasure. I do keep in mind, however, the "possibility that [a] countermeasure could create an OPSEC indicator" (DoD OPSEC manual at p. 14).[0]
But burning everything, that's also obstruction, I think.
0) https://www.OPSECprofessionals.org/official/081103_DOD_OPSEC... OPSEC manual
You're always better off to pass all communications through a lawyer. They're not allowed to lie to a lawyer.
It's as if you've created a computer game for the cops in which they have one "life", before "game over". But they can easily defeat that by "saving the game" before the risky encounter with your data-eating password monster, to give themselves as many lives as they wish.
(Widely circulated, unimplemented idea which some people believe actually exists.)