DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
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If the government feels the information they want is on a laptop, the laptop's owner would suddenly find themselves forced to prove a negative (there are no more hidden volumes), lest they be held in contempt.
If they can seemingly compel you to reveal something they can't proven even exists and lock you up until you can prove that it doesn't, the door for abuses isn't even wide open; it'll have been removed from its hinges along with most of the wall.
This is a mortgage fraud case involving years of criminal activity, so I'm guessing that it's probably not too hard for the prosecution to produce witnesses who can say "yes, she sold me that crappy mortgage and used her laptop when I went to meet with her.", or direct information of her internet usage (ISP, or logs from cable modem), or observation of her using the laptop by police during the investigation.
Then they can't prove it's "your server" and thus order you to reveal the key.
(For example, if you have access to a credit card not in your name, you can set up an EC2 micro instance for free for a year. Then install TeueCrypt and be on your merry criminal way. What could the DOJ do?)
If they wanted to pin it to you, they could easily show timing correlations between your client system activity and the VM activity. Probably they would also go to the person who lent you their credit card and threaten them with prosecution unless they fingered you.
Cryptography is not going to save you from prosecution if you do any noteworthy crime. There is no security "in the cloud" from any government with a jurisdictional or financial relationship with the provider. (Though Tahoe LAFS is an interesting project).
I think it will still be a requirement for the gov't to show that there's cause. In the same way that the gov't can't hold you if they suspect you know where a kidnapped victim is held, unless they have evidence that you do know where they're at (it's similar in that you don't have to prove a negative, rather the police must show that there's reason to hold you).
So they must have evidence that suggests there is another volume.
The government would have evidence and reason to believe I have that data. So, naturally, they'll get to seize my laptop and apparently can compel me to unlock it and allow them arbitrary access.
It seems to me that they don't know the stolen data resides on that laptop any more than they know whether I have a hidden volume that contains the data they're searching for. So if their evidence is good enough to compel me to produce a password, why would it not be good enough to insist a hidden volume contains the data and that I'm withholding the sought-after data?
If someone can simply say "nope, no hidden volumes here" and that's the end of it, it would be trivial to defeat a digital investigation.
In short, I'm skeptical about what defines the reasonableness of an investigation and this apparent power to compel arbitrary access to documents.
More interesting, IMO, would be how alleged steganography would be handled.
If you write anything to the non-hidden volume while you don't have the hidden volume mounted, you risk overwriting part of the hidden volume.
* The government 'knows' that you have a bunch of digital data, therefore it must be stored on a digital device. Therefore, all your digital devices are reasonably suspect.
* The government can't search your laptop without full access to files. If you have full-drive encryption (or even just homedir/per-user encryption), the government can reasonably claim that you haven't given then full access, with some amount of proof that there is encryption being used.
* Once you have unlocked your primary partition, the government would probably have a hard time convincing a judge that there is any reasonable way to know if you have a hidden partition, other than asking you with a polygraph... which I don't think you can be compelled to take.
They can't hold you forever (except maybe in enemy combatant like scenarios), much like if you picked up a girl from a club at midnight, and no one ever saw her again. Your claim is you dropped her off at her apartment at 3am, but there's no evidence of it. They can ask you what they want, but w/o more evidence they can't just lock you up forever.
But with more evidence, for example, if they find IMs where you mention that you've hidden something in hidden volumes, they may have more options open to them.
I guess my point is that this seems to fall into standard practice, more than this being a one off rule specific to hidden volumes.
Then, having several is difficult since they all have to nest, and can't reside in parallel (i.e. the second hidden volume has to be inside the first hidden volume, it can't reside along side the first hidden volume within the top-level volume).
I suppose somebody could make the argument that all that unused space is slack or something like that ("Oh yeah I only use 20GB/200GB HDD). Though, as people have said, this is pretty new territory.
Perhaps I misread the article, but I didn't see a mention of whether this involved hidden TC volumes or not.
EDIT: Clarity.
Oh, and anyone smart enough to do that wouldn't describe their method on a public forum.
Also, your first sentence really irritates me: having the entire OS volume encrypted in no way means that you have two OS volumes, which you seem to be saying.
I am of the opinion, as you stated, most criminals are not wise enough to go through the extra steps necessary to truly make TC hidden volumes reliable. From my experience, the extent of most peoples' tech savvy is running CCleaner or in the RAREST of cases Eraser. Though, I should say my experiences are 90% corporate.
The general argument for forcing someone to turn over the key to a door once compelled by the court is that it is commonly known there are other reasonable means by which to access the content the door protects that do not require the key:
1) Locksmith 2) Break the door down 3) Use a different door if one exist
These are reasonable methods as neither of them take a considerable amount of time, in many cases a reasonably consistent amount of time between unique cases, and are methods that are readily available in all markets and jurisdictions. This makes the case that the contents behind the door can be accessed through various methods, some of which do not require my involvement, therefor my not turning over the key is only nominally delaying the inevitable.
In the case of an encryption key that protects data, which once protected is only in the possession of the individual who also posses the key, this is very different IMHO.
It is very different for this simple reason:
If proper procedures have been followed, and certain encryption methods have been utilized, there is no reasonably consistent method for acquiring the original data other than information I posses in my mind.
I say reasonably consistent because if you had limitless resources and limitless time you could try every possible combination and at some point gain access. That is, however, unless the mechanism that relays the encryption key is not designed in a way as to destroy the data after N failed attempts.
In either case, no court can be reasonably certain of the time it would take to access the original data or if they would ever gain access at all. This directly conflicts with my right to a speedy trial and certainly conflicts with my right not to incriminate myself as I'm the only one who can provide access within a reasonable amount of time.
And as far as I'm concerned, the 5th protects me from incriminating myself.
This is pretty much the same thing they are demanding from her - we don't want your password, we want access to your hard drive.
As I stated in my comment above, in the case of properly encrypted data where exactly one person possesses the key this is not the same.
If the court decides that encryption is like a safe then, regardless of how impossible it is to open the safe without a key, the court can coerce you into decrypting your HD.
However, if the court decides that encryption is like a secret language that only you can translate (a more accurate representation of encryption, in my opinion) then they will likely rule that they cannot coerce you into decrypting the data.
Public interests will be harmed absent requiring defendants to make available unencrypted contents in circumstances like these. Failing to compel Ms. Fricosu amounts to a concession to her and potential criminals (be it in child exploitation, national security, terrorism, financial crimes or drug trafficking cases)
I don't like how they bring out the bogey-men of child pornography and terrorism to justify making her decrypt the drive.
For example, you could easily argue that having a lawyer present during interrogation harms public interests for exactly the same reasons: Child molesters, terrorists, and just plain naughty people will clam up and not give investigators information that could lead to a conviction.
We had that discussion, and south of the border you decided that public interests were harmed by not allowing a lawyer to be present and were further harmed by not warning suspects of their rights.
(Canada takes a different view with respect to the right to a lawyer for complex reasons.)
If Ms. Fricosu is so dangerous, if her crimes are so serious and widespread, sure there is evidence beyond the encrypted volumes in her computer. There is no crime without evidence. The DoJ should find the missing evidence and then, with a strong case, offer Ms. Fricosu a deal in that she gets some slack for revealing the exact extent and methods of her misdeeds.
Whoever said that was not attempting to provide a logical argument, but to elicit an emotional response in the audience. The point would have (and should have) been made without the references to all manner of boogie-men.
That is the correct analogy for this situation much more than safes or doors. Computer encryption is the same thing, just uses a common cipher and the information is encrypted millions of times faster than a human could crypt by hand.
To which I say:
1. Your prosecutors are lazy and want to force criminals to prosecute themselves.
2. If the only external evidence of a crime is a private file on a hard drive, it seems to me that not much harm was done to society and we should leave these people alone.
It's worth it to trade letting some guilty people get away with it in order to have the freedom of conscience to write whatever we like in our computers and not be compelled to turn over our private writings.
If something bad was done to someone else, there's going to be evidence of it elsewhere: Contracts must be held by some other party, bank records, etc.
Is the prosecutor trying to claim the government needs access to the accused computer to convict her of a commercial crime? Are there no third parties involved who are in possession of useful records? No banks were involved in this mortgage fraud? Really???
I believe this is enough to get protection under 5th amendment. Giving password or providing decrypted content is already testimony against yourself saying that you control these files..
Here's a pretty decent page about the charge: http://www.federalcriminallawyer.us/2011/01/12/federal-law-o...
tl;dr: "18 USC 1503 is a felony offense for which the sentence can be 10 years imprisonment."
What if she actually doesn't know the password? For example if it isn't her laptop or the password was written down and lost or it is an old encrypted volume which she doesn't use anymore, etc.
Where did she get it from? (or from whom? - she should be able to say.) In what condition was the laptop found, on her desk? opened? screen saver on? or powered down? in a pile, covered in dust? any fingerprints or other signs of use? Any removable media present? They can look in her office for passwords written down. They can check her mobile devices for password managers and compel her to unlock those.
Understand for the case to even proceed to indictment (which happened last year), they have done all of this work to make sure that their case is pretty solid. There are pretrial hearings, and depositions and other things which lawyers do to answer all these questions about whether they can prove that she really should be able to provide the password.
The fact is, no matter how sure the prosecution is of the accused's guilt and the hard drive's content, the accused can still just have forgotten the password. That's it, just forgotten the password. and the accused could be innocent of the crime, and now facing inescapable prison time, all because they wanted to keep their personal financial documents safe and have an unreliable memory. That is not a reasonable way to carry about justice.
I agree fully, forgetting passwords happens. My AD account at work has a short, random password with a forgiving lifespan. Even though I have to enter it a few dozen times a day, following the long weekend I had for the 4th it took me 5 minutes of sitting at my desk before I remembered enough to make a few guesses at it.
If I went more than a week or so without opening my encrypted partition, the password is long, complicated and changed frequently enough that I will most likely forget it. I currently only know it by muscle memory.
Why doesn't the prosecutor ask banks and other parties for the records necessary to prove the accused is guilty? This is a mortgage fraud case right? Why can't they look at emails, contracts, bank records, and phone records that 3rd parties must have?
Since you can't defraud yourself, there has to be some other party involved who can turn over evidence against you.
If the prosecutor is so smart, why demand that the defendant incriminate himself? That is how the system in France works. Perhaps this prosecutor should move there.
Craig Price is a notorious serial killer from my hometown. They caught him when he was 15 and the law only provided that they could hold him till age 21. Sometime after the law changed to patch this hole, he was ordered the see a psychiatrist. Upon his refusal, he was held in felony contempt of court and sentenced to 10 years.
This suggests to me that the prosecution has failed to prove that the laptop, or the data on the laptop, is hers. In which case, as I understand it, they would be unable to make a contempt charge stick.
Is the government's whole case dependent on the hypothetical contents of her laptop?
I have to disagree with the Obama adminsitration's stance on this, and other "electronic" civil liberty positions.
So, depending on her mindset she can choose whether to become a convicted fraudster or a convicted but potentially innocent freedom and privacy fighter (with that 10-year sentence). I'm not saying that doing time isn't easy but...
In that case you give them the decoy password and they clear your machine for you
Any competent investigator will make backups of your disk, and work only on the backup. They'll probably also use their own tools to decrypt any content on the disk, rather than booting up the suspect's OS and relying on the suspect's tools.
Also, for trying something like this, you'll probably face additional destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice charges.
The one that sets off the thermite, that is.
You will still be imprisoned, but it will be a sentence of known length, rather than "at the king's pleasure."
And be sure to compare the penalty with the one you were originally trying to escape from.
That's not a plausible scenario with general-purpose computer parts. The lab would obviously have made backup copies of the drive first.
Use general-purpose computer parts, with some imagination.
One simple example:
Modify the power pins (in a USB keychain drive and a dedicated USB socket, naturally) such that +5v and ground are connected backwards.
Connect a diode in such a way that should the stick ever be plugged into an ordinary USB socket, power is applied to a small piece of nichrome igniter wire (model rocket store, or cannibalize any electrical heating appliance.)
The igniter wire is wrapped around a small magnesium ribbon glued to the exposed (use nitric acid) EEPROM die.
Make sure that the package still looks like a normal USB key from the outside, and is well-sealed to avoid unsightly smoke and light (if you do not take care to do this, you may well find "endangering a law enforcement official using an illegal pyrotechnic device" or the like added to the charges against you.)
And of course none of this will help if the enemy expects it. The above is merely an example.
In any case, you do something like that today you will frighten the living daylights out of enough technically-illiterate-but-powerful people that you will not get out of jail for a long long time, regardless of whether or not there is any reasonable justification for it.
Know that any serious electronics tinkerer could come up with many tricks far more clever than this one.
And once again, one ought to compare the sentence for evidence destruction to that which your original crimes carry.
Once they notice anything funny, your "device" will be sent off to their bomb lab. They will have first-rate capabilities and, given the infrequency of actual bombs in the US, they'll probably have plenty of interested experts on hand.
There's a good chance that guy writing the report advising the judge of what you've done earned most of his hands-on experience with IEDs in Iraq.
I know you're not intending anything malicious, I'm just trying to explain to you the seriousness of what you're proposing.
I am a serious electronics tinkerer though and I find the idea of a secure-wipe facility interesting. You really want to look for ways to do it that don't set off any red flags.
Here's a good standard: If you wanted to productize such a device would you be able to get Underwriters' Laboratories to (UL) to safety certify it for use in the home?
It is very much possible to incinerate a chip die within a compact, hermetically-sealed container without releasing smoke or other tell-tale signs. The US and other wealthy nations' armies use self-contained modules like this in their encrypted radio equipment.
Plus, if you need more room, you can mimic an external USB hard drive rather than a keychain drive.
> I'm just trying to explain to you the seriousness of what you're proposing
It is true that if your handiwork produces smoke, flame, noise, etc. I do not envy your fate. If it happens during arrest, the police might even shoot you. But if, on the other hand, nothing suspicious is seen when your equipment is seized, and weeks later detectives discover a few grams of molten slag where an EEPROM chip should be, I doubt you will be tried for having set off an illicit bomb.
You will still go to jail. A reason will be found to put you there - it isn't hard. "Give me six lines written by the most honest man..."
Perhaps it only makes sense to rehearse and plan for this data-destruction scenario if you possess secrets that remain important apart from any criminal case against you.
> If you wanted to productize such a device would you be able to get Underwriters' Laboratories to (UL) to safety certify it for use in the home?
This is very much the wrong question to ask.
Something like this can never become a consumer product. The government would never permit it to be openly sold, regardless of any safety considerations.
If you view law enforcement officials as your enemy, using unmodified off-the-shelf equipment, regardless of its rarity and expense, is simply stupid. Back doors are a near-certainty. And the only way I know of to securely and unambiguously wipe large amounts of data on short notice is combustion.
Yes I know it is. I just don't think you are going to homebrew it out of model rocket igniters and magnesium ribbon.
The US and other wealthy nations' armies use self-contained modules like this in their encrypted radio equipment.
And they're not going to jail for releasing smoke in a federal crime lab.
If you view law enforcement officials as your enemy, using unmodified off-the-shelf equipment, regardless of its rarity and expense, is simply stupid.
The great majority of the off-the-shelf equipment is not even designed or made in the US. It's used by the US govt as much as anybody else.
Back doors are a near-certainty.
Really? Name three hidden back doors from the US government. I can only think of one or two, making them pretty rare.
Sometimes back doors are found, so it's not that nobody's looking: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110707_5612.php
And the only way I know of to securely and unambiguously wipe large amounts of data on short notice is combustion.
Which is why I don't think you're going to do anything except dig yourself deeper.
No, they merely stand to lose wars.
How long should a soldier expect to live if the enemy catches him in the middle of destroying encryption keys and understands right away that it is what he is doing?
> Name three hidden back doors from the US government. I can only think of one or two, making them pretty rare.
Are you serious?
Who are you trying to fool? This is an insult to the intelligence of every reader of this site.
Cryptosystems are designed to protect military secrets, not an individual soldier in such a highly specific circumstance. It's not unheard of to have a "duress code" or other silent wipe functionality, but I doubt hiding the keypress effects from a local observer is a primary concern of infantry soldier gear.
The idea is that they would wipe the keys before they are captured. If they are captured in the act of wiping the keys that would be following standard orders. The radio operator would be worth more alive than dead, but he'd still better put his hands up when there's a gun in his face.
Are you serious? Who are you trying to fool? This is an insult to the intelligence of every reader of this site.
I'll take that as a 'no' then.
This back-and-forth is kind of frowned upon on this site. My email is in my profile if you'd like to continue the discussion.
I wonder if anyone has thought of using more than one keys as a decryption possibility. I've always considered it, but never figured there'd be too much use. Say, have one correct key to decrypts data stored in one way, and another key to either "decrypts" into a pre-generated text, or another variation of what's stored. I guess it latter might be too content dependent.
What's even more frustrating is that the Supreme Court doesn't have to state any reasons for refusing to hear a case. They could just do it on a whim, or for some completely biased reasons and no one would ever know.
We saw the same thing with the Patriot Act..do not have proper staff? than by God make sure that the US constitution suddenly does not apply if traveling outside the US..
The computer needs the right to plead the 5th. One day far in the future, computers will be part of who we are. Basic Human rights was designed to protect humans, not the computers. When the computers integrate with us, I hope we can take back all the rights the courts have stolen. Pleading the 5th will be futile, as all the courts have to do is download your computer module and then scan the logs of what you did, where you did it, and what you were thinking when you did it.
This stuff is important, and needs a creative solution that stops the criminals while not making everyone a criminal.
http://www.vvsss.com/grid/xkcd-on-crypto.gif
Here in the UK, we already have to hand over our keys or be chucked in jail.
And a direct image link from XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/538/ (easily googled -- xkcd crypto, first hit.)
If we accept that this encrypted space is protected by the fifth amendment, then why won't we just regulate that encryption needs a "law enforcement access key" or make such encryption just illegal? You can make a very compelling case that it's not serving any public good if you can list off criminals and crimes that have gone free because of it. That would make the very use of encryption potentially becomes a crime regardless of the encrypted information content. Is that not the logical next step?
I'll assert what I've asserted many times, here and other places: if you're breaking the law for some ideological reason and keep encrypted electronic records of it, you're way better not going to court and not being on any police or prosecution's radar than just banking on the encryption holding. Pirating movies on bit torrent isn't exactly civil disobedience either, that would mean doing so openly and publicly.
> it's not like they were randomly going through customs
> or pulled over by a police officer and the contents of
> their computer were requested
the encrypted space isn't protected by the 5th Amendment. The content of your brain is. If the police finds the password written on post-it under the keyboard, they would have all the rights to use it.
>then why won't we just regulate that encryption needs a "law enforcement access key" or make such encryption just illegal?
1st Amendment. A right to produce all kind of communication garbage, incl. XOR-ed image of your brain with Antarctica map or quasi-scientific reasons against tax increases or this my post.
What about Bernie Madoff? Wouldn't you be furious if all data produced by a corrupt hedge fund manager was encrypted? Wouldn't you want the DOJ to be able to hold them in contempt of court? If you hamstring your government, you aren't allowed to complain that it is ineffective.
There's a line, and past that line, law enforcement has no power to enforce laws at all. Removing the DOJ's ability to collect evidence is, in some cases, the equivalent to denying a detective access to a crime scene. If all productions of electronic evidence can be encrypted, and the defense is not forced to decrypt those files, then dirty corporations only need to encrypt everything to defend themselves in court.
Defense: "We produced everything you asked for."
Prosecution: "We can't even verify that statement. Decrypt it"
Defense: "We don't have to."
Case closed.
for example, there's no need for a right to free speech if you're only going to say things that everyone thinks should be said.
rights exist because some things are so important they are worth the cost of abuse.
At first blush it may be thought surprising that one should have a right to do that which one ought not. Is it not better to confine rights to that which it is right or at least permissible to do? But to say this is to misunderstand the nature of rights. One needs no right to be entitled to do the right thing. That it is right gives one all the title one needs. But one needs a right to be entitled to do that which one should not. It is an essential element of rights to action that they entitle one to do that which one should not. To say this is not, of course, to say that the purpose or justification of rights of action is to increase wrongdoing. Their purpose is to develop and protoect the autonomy of the agent. They entitle him to choose for himself rightly or wrongly. But they cannot do that unless they entitle him to choose wrongly. - Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law (p 266)
the final sentence of the quote above is hugely important.
Similarly, you aren't going to convince me that a prosecutor, warrant in hand, has no right to search a computer for evidence of credit card fraud.
in this case, there may be a right to silence. i don't know (i am not american) if that "really is" a right. but if it is a right then it exists even if it allows, say, a paedophile to escape justice (through remaining silent). it's not nice, but it's the price you pay to help guarantee freedom.
[edit: it's perhaps worth adding that you could make rights more complicated. you could say that there is (or should be) a "right to silence except when it's a password", for example. there's no prima facie reason why rights should be simple. but there is a strong practical reason why rights should be simple: they need to be simple so that they are easy to understand, easy to defend, and easy to use. again, this is because rights - real rights - are critical, might-be-needed-to-save-the-world things. and that is also why there should only be a few of them.]
Nobody is revising the Bill of Rights, the Fourth or Fifth Amendments.
At least agree that there is a conflict here; otherwise you're just being dense.
AFAIK the govt. cannot compel (legally) anybody to reveal the combination to a ticking time-bomb; or the location of a murder weapon etc. How the hell is asking for a passphrase any different? Do you really not understand the nuance here?
The other point is that AFAIK the govt. has never asserted the right to compel a handwritten note to be deciphered. The govt. doesn't assert the right to systematically read people's mail (even postcards); but they do so wrt electronic comms. I think we can safely state that almost all comm. is going to be electronic in the future. That's why this is important. This is yet another example of the govt. trying to trim back rights that the hoi polloi have enjoyed for a couple of centuries.
As to why this is important: you might have read the quote that six lines by any man's hand are enough to hang him.
Sorry, I meandered a little there.
The hand-written note argument doesn't hold water, in my eyes, because it is the encryption of all of the evidence, not any one document, that is at issue. As was mentioned, the government has compelled people to open safes.
Imagine for a second that I was less technically minded and didn't use encryption and I purchased a used laptop from someone who did, I then get caught up in the legal system (guilty or innocent for the charged crime, it doesn't matter, but I did not use encryption) and some prosecutor has a warrant to compel me to unlock that encrypted volume, else I be held in contempt. What now?
A guy going through border guards control somehow let them see he had illegal images on his laptop. The court concluded he is no longer protected by Fifth Amendment because of that, and ordered him to EITHER reveal the password OR give access to the (encrypted) content in question in some other way.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10172866-38.html?tag=mncol...
If you were to refuse to give the password under the grounds that someone you refuse to identify sold you the computer with the encrypted data already on it, then you would rightly be considered to be lying because that's the most plausible case for that behavior.
Assuming the original owner can be identified (I've bought a laptop off of craigslist with no way to find the previous owner even a day later), found (contact data is still valid, person is willing to cooperate with the investigation), is willing to corroborate your story (what if the laptop was, unbeknownst to the buyer, stolen property or the seller pleads the 5th and/or lies about the encrypted files), and that the prosecution is willing to believe the both of you.
It is simple, but relies on a WHOLE lot of faith in the system.
you would rightly be considered to be lying because that's the most plausible case for that behavior.
If you're going to be held in contempt (as the GP seems to be discussing) just for something that is the most plausible of options kind of destroys the judiciary's position of dealing with the complex unforeseen circumstances that arise in law. The most plausible situation is that OJ killed his wife, but we don't carry out justice with such imprecision.
>If you were to refuse to give the password [...], then you would rightly be considered to be lying...
exactly. This is why you have the right to remain silent. You're not "refusing to give the password under the grounds", you're not giving "answers that isn't the password". You're just silent. A vegetable. Otherwise any answer, like you explained it yourself, can be used against you.
Sorry your honor there were no incriminating papers found.
Passwords to encrypted containers are slightly different - they're not as simple as a key to a safe, and not as obviously protected as my above (contrived) example. However, the same problem exists. If I compel you to decrypt an encrypted volume, and you don't actually have the password (i.e. it's a friends', or whatever), then it's similar enough to the example above.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I well-versed in law. But I know enough to say that it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as some people think.
In order for good people to be free, some bad guys might also get away. Such is the price of a free society.
Of course they should. But that's no the issue here. The issue at hand is whether or not the government can compel you to give them information.
Consider this. You have a box, buried in the Mojave desert, with some documents in it. You've memorized the gps coordinates of this box. Should they be able to compel you state those coordinates?
Sure, they could search 100s of square miles looking for your box, and they might stumble upon it. But they shouldn't be able to force your to tell them where it is.
An encryption key is the same. They can try to brute force it if they wish. They're just looking for a much smaller box in a much bigger desert.
A subpoena is a compulsory order to produce all documents related to a matter, whether the government knows they exist or not. So yes, if you believe in subpoena power, you agree that you should have to produce that box.
> US v Hubbell makes clear that the government cannot compel production of documents (except under immunity to prosecution) which it does not know, ahead of time, to exist.
Dunno if that's true (as IANAL), just quoting.
You have the coordinates of the dead body, or they can dig and scan each square foot of the continent. This is not a Fifth Amendment case. They don't want or care about the coordinates itself. They can't use the information you provide (the coordinates of the dead body) to incriminate you, no matter what the coordinates of the dead body is.
The Fifth Amendment, as currently interpreted, doesn't provide the protection you describe. It protects against giving self-incriminating testimony and essentially the question is whether the password is "testimony." Keep in mind that the government is not asking him to disclose it, just to type it into the computer. Here's a good discussion: http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1197670606.shtml (There seems to be a CSS problem with that page, but the text is fine.)
Then what in your theory would be an explanation for an ineffective government of practically unlimited power?