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Comment by neuland | Hacker News Reader

This is the way things should work. But, there was a widely reported case recently where a man accused of possessing child pornography has been held in jail for a long time [0]. From what I can tell, he's been in jail for contempt of court for nearly 2 and a half years!

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed-indef...

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If it's been 2 years, can they even prove that he can still remember the password? He hasn't had to use it for over 2 years, it would be entirely probable his memory of it has faded.

How about this theoretical situation: I place an encrypted file in a hard drive belonging to someone I dislike, and then frame them circumstantially with the likely possession of contraband data on said hard drive. Since he owns the device, he may be so unlucky as to have the authorities believe he knows how to decrypt the file despite him claiming he has no knowledge of how the file came to be or how to decrypt it. If they will not accept that argument, this seems like a good way to place a political opponent in jail indefinitely by someone with the means to craft such a scenario

That's because the issue is more complicated than any absolute statements.

One case decided that law enforcement can compel you to turn over documents that it knows you have possession of, regardless of where they exist. You're not testifying against yourself; you're turning over evidence.

Another case has decided that they can't compel you to turn over a password so they can search for evidence.

That's true. Nothing is guaranteed. That's actually what I'm trying to say, too. Normally, 5A covers passwords. But it didn't in this case, because somehow the court was able to decide that this hard drive undeniably has CP on it.

So, it's not incriminating yourself to decrypt something everyone already knows you have. That's kinda weird and concerning, depending on how they proved the hard drive's contents without decrypting it. I mean, if it's just someone saying "I saw it on his computer" then that's problematic in my opinion. Whereas if they have server logs, or logs from a different hard drive of his detailing the contents of the encrypted drive, or something more concrete than hearsay, I don't see an issue.

Edit: I guess the issue is: why do they need the contents of the drive if they can already prove the contents of the drive enough to convict?

> can compel you to turn over documents that it knows you have possession of,

The only way to positively know that one has possession of the documents in question is to read them. If they need someone's help to decrypt the documents, then they at best have a very strong suspicion/circumstantial evidence of possession.

Even if they intercepted transmission of the documents in question, they don't know if the documents are still in possession or have been deleted until they've gotten the suspect to cooperate and decrypt all of the suspected documents.

If one had a hidden encrypted partition filled only with copies of the U.S. bill of rights, and the government used sworn testimony of definite knowledge that the hidden partition contained contraband in order to force disclosure of decryption keys, what's the likelihood that a good lawyer could get enough damages out of the government to make it worthwhile to sit in detention for a month or two while things got sorted out?

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