Hacker News Reader

Comment by alethiophile | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting, because the case is clearly being structured (intentionally by the government, one presumes) to force the test case of "is compelled decryption legal" onto the most unsympathetic possible defendant.

If the government "knows beyond doubt" that the encrypted drives have CP on them, then they have everything necessary to move forward with a trial without decrypting the drives at all. That satisfies society's legitimate interest in suppressing child porn, while also not trampling all over the legal right to use encryption. Choosing to structure the case in this way, with an appeal to the Supreme Court over a matter that's a technicality in the original case, clearly shows that the goal is to get a precedent for forced decryption, not merely to jail one child porn possessor.

View on HN

They don't "know beyond doubt" in an absolute sense. They know sure enough to make the encrypted drives content part of the trial in the first place, which is a determination the judge made himself and that wasn't challenged by the defense so far.

At some point the main trial will continue, very probably without the decrypted drives. Then the defense will very very likely argue why the hashes aren't enough proof for possession of illegal files, and they will hear experts statements on the matter on both sides, other evidence for the possession etc. And then a _jury_ will make the judgement, with much more factors and on a very different standard of "beyond doubt".

They "know beyond doubt" that the drives at least used to contain CP, and most likely do now. It's possible that the CP was deleted at some point, and the only way to determine that would be to decrypt the drives.

> They "know beyond doubt" that the drives at least used to contain CP

If they even merely had sufficient evidence to know beyond a reasonable doubt, then they would have sufficient evidence for a trial conviction and the decryption would be a sideshow.

Either they are lying about their knowledge (unnecessarily from a legal perspective, so probably for PR), or lying about needing the decryption for evidence, or telling the truth about both but the source of their knowledge is itself illegal evidence (and any evidence they collect based on that knowledge is fruit of the poisonous tree.)

Or they're telling the truth but they're worried that a jury won't understand the explanation of how they know and would really like to have the actual CP in-hand to use as evidence instead.

If they've linked specific hashes to known CP content, then presumably they have those files available. They can still present that as evidence, then have the experts testify that those specific files are known to have been on the drive.

Going to the Supreme Court specifically on the forced-decryption issue sends a pretty strong signal that that's what they actually care about.

There could be hash-colissions of entirely diffrent files. Hashes are not proof enough.

If it's a hash without known collision vulnerabilities, then it's 2^80 proof at least. This is definitely "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Even if there were, what's the threat model? "Government creates colliding images one CP and one not, seeds the non-CP versions widely in torrents or something, then uses the hash collision to accuse anyone who downloaded of CP"? That's way more roundabout than governments will bother with; a dirty prosecutor will just fabricate evidence entirely, or have witnesses lie. (Plus, just producing the innocuous colliding image and demonstrating the collision would be an easy and ironclad defense.)

The threat model is "antagonist creates colliding image which is CP, claims original unviewable file was CP."

So you, the protagonist, have an encrypted volume full of the names and addresses of people helping evacuate Jews from Nazi-controlled Europe / blockade the construction of a new mine which was approved through bribery and corruption. The antagonist claims you are a CPer and produces a list of known hashes on files on your disk, and a sample of really awful images that conveniently have the same hashes.

So the end game is either bust your information out to assist prosecution of the anti-government activists, or land you in the slammer as a CPer thus dragging your cause into the mud.

If the original files weren't under the control of the adversary, that's a preimage attack, not a collision attack. No hash that's ever used for file authentication, even MD5, is vulnerable to second preimage.

If they were, then first off you should have been more careful about putting untrusted data on the same drive as anything actually important, but secondly it's usually obvious when a file is constructed as part of a collision attack, and there would be no good reason for the government's exhibits to show those markers.

Really, this whole discourse is silly anyway. In accordance with the usual XKCD, if the government really wants to railroad you, they won't bother with cryptographic vulnerabilities; they'll just lie and/or plant evidence. Creating and exploiting a hash collision isn't something you do by accident; it's conscious, outright evidence manipulation, and if they're willing to do that they can do it much easier ways.

Technically, the defendant is the one going to the Supreme Court. Of course they somewhat forced his hand by putting him in jail. IANAL, but probably he could have abandoned his fifth amendment defense strategy much earlier, which is the only thing currently before the Supreme Court, go back to the original judge and raise the "I forgot the password" defense there. Under the assumption that he could have done that, and again IANAL so I'm sorry if that is wrong, he is the one forcing the issue at the Supreme Court.

Of course the prosecution has nothing to loose here, so why would they do anything (if they could, I don't believe they play any role in this part), and the judge that made the contempt of court ruling that is the basis of all of this is unlikely to just give in and admit he was wrong, and also probably pretty interested to get a final judgment on what he believes is his legal right to do.

And you make it sound like getting the highest courts opinion is a bad thing. Either way, then we know, and I'm glad I'm not the one that has to wait it out in jail.

I am also not a lawyer, but if the government really just wanted their conviction of this one guy, the obvious path seems to be to abandon the court order to decrypt the drive, and just move forward with trial based on the forensic evidence from the system root. Slapping him with contempt on this, and continuing to sweat him out in jail while he files higher and higher appeals, is the government's decision.

Getting the Supremes' opinion on this is kind of a superposition of states: if they decide in favor of right-to-encrypt, that's great, as suddenly the government will (presumably) stop using these kinds of court orders; but if they find against, then it's worse than the current uncertain situation, as orders to decrypt will then become an accepted tool. If the Supremes would find in favor of compelled decryption, then I'd prefer it never go to them, and remain in the current legal limbo.

"The government" as such is not involved here. I'm not going to pretend the separation of powers is as clean cut as what one learns in school, but first and foremost this is a ruling of a single and independent judge that the defendant is challenging.

I fail to see any motivation for the judge to back down on his contempt of court order. I fail to see any motivation for the prosecution to try to continue the trial faster without the drives (which would be a much weaker case). Just because they are good people and have any problem with somebody they believe to be very guilty sitting in jail? They send people to jail all day long.

And I for myself, owner of many encrypted drives, prefer to know and not having to fight that fight myself while sitting in jail.

> the case is clearly being structured (intentionally by the government, one presumes) to force the test case of "is compelled decryption legal" onto the most unsympathetic possible defendant.

This is called strategic litigation for a rule change and is quite common amongst 'repeat-player litigants'. Prosecutors, insurance companies, and even the plaintiffs' bar routinely take unnecessary cases to trial if they think it would set a favorable precedent and also settle cases where they think a trial might set an unfavorable precedent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com