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Comment by bennyp101 | Hacker News Reader

Ooof, what happens if you use some sort of hardware key as your password - yubikey or similar - and it ends up getting broken somehow (maybe during you being tackled to the floor or something), there would be no way to recover that password or TOTP.

Simply falling over and breaking it on your keys would be enough to put you foul of this law?

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Presumably not, because "the key is broken" is not the same as "I refuse to hand over the keys". This law, rightly or wrongly, is concerned with the latter concept.

Right ok yea, that is a difference.

I guess "Ah crap, it was on my keys earlier, I must have lost it - I can't do anything" would be a grey area!

I don't think it would be a grey area. If the police couldn't prove that you were lying or had deliberately obstructed the investigation, it would be tough luck for them if you couldn't get into your own device.

If you were prepared to lose your device, it would be easier to ditch it than ditch the keys but, again, not all criminals think that far ahead. I read that they caught Dread Pirate Roberts because he thought he would never get caught (in a public library!)

I dunno, "losing" a Yubikey Nano would be a lot easier and more believable than "losing" a laptop that you are known to carry about. In terms of plausibility, I'd favour the key being "lost" over the device.

Also, if you have a backup key somewhere, you haven't lost any data or your machine.

Make sure they don't know a backup exists though, or you'd have to unlock that.

So there's at least some demand for a key that works like a Yubikey but has a breakable form (that presumably sets off a piezo device that scrambles the key). Keep it in your pocket, break it with your hand, or slam your hip into a wall/floor to break. Make sure to take the key out before you sit down!

Or, once they exist, just carry a broken key with you for plausible deniability?

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