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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

I use a password manager, and I genuinely do not know the password for most of my accounts.

I use a very long, static password baked into a YubiKey (with some other measures), and I honestly don't know what the password is.

Q: What's your password?

A: I have no idea.

Q: How do you log into computers then?

A: I'm going to invoke my right to remain silent now, thanks.

[I am under no illusion that this actually helps the compelled decryption situation]

IRL you should be invoking your right by simply not answering the first question or any other.

You are correct.

If you ever actually get arrested, do not do this. Once you start answering questions, you forfeit your right to silence, and refusing to answer questions later can and will be taken as evidence against you. Just be silent from the beginning.

You can shut up any time; there's no "Oh, you were talking, now you can't stop talking."

Of course you cannot take back what escaped your mouth prior to asserting for right to remain silent.

This hurts the compelled decryption situation immensely. You have a physical key that you can be forced to turn over, and then they basically have everything.

There are other measures, such as a prefix or suffix ("PIN") that you can supply, so the physical key doesn't have the entire password. Otherwise, you're right.

It's also useful to be able to leave the physical key at home, or with another party.

... and if you hand it to your attorney, does that count as privileged communication?

Warrants have to be specific, correct? If they asked for your Xyz password and you didn't know it, you explained you used a password manager- would they have to get an expanded warrant to compel you to disclose that password? Would that be considered an overly broad warrant?

I use my password manager to save things that are not passwords too- padlock combos, combo to my safe, medical info, parents wills, banking, all my dirty secrets... Seems wrong they could get access to all my info if the warrant is just for Xyz.

there could be language in a warrant to include that scenario.

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