Hacker News Reader

Comment by 321abc | Hacker News Reader

I've been using computers since the 1980's, and have had dozens and dozens of passwords. I honestly don't remember the vast majority of passwords I've used in the past.

Many of the passwords I currently use have been randomly generated and are stored in a password storage app, the database in which these passwords are stored could be easily lost, damaged beyond recovery, or to which I could forget the master password.

So, if legally required to produce a password for some reason, I could quite conceivably go to jail even if I were willing to provide the password, but just couldn't remember what it was (or if it was one of the randomly generated passwords that I'd never memorized in the first place but no longer had access to for some reason).

View on HN

Yeah, I don't remember all of my passwords either. And I usually have the most trouble remembering my most important passwords, since the number of times I use a password is pretty much inversely correlated to the importance of the data it protects. So the idea that I could be jailed for not admitting something that I no longer had knowledge of is somewhat scary.

How about the password for what ever is currently the most important thing in your life? Or not even most important, do you remember your cash-card PIN?

Terrorists planning the London bombings, for example, are unlikely to have forgotten their password. They've memorised the whole Koran (on the whole) remembering the access code to the details of the single most important defining action in their entire lives is unlikely.

Still possible, but I don't think your story is relevant.

Don't worry, citizen. It's only those Koran-memorizing terrorists who have something to fear. You are quite safe. Go back to sleep.

My comment was in response to someone saying that they had lots of old passwords they'd forgotten - the point was that this law is not being used to get access to your old ASCII porn collection on your 386 in the closet.

The mention of the Koran was saying that one of the disciplines muslims strive for is reciting the whole Koran, quite a feat of memory IMO. A well motivated person, who has probably mastered this memory task is unlikely, I contend, to forget an encryption key (password) that is part of what will be the defining moment of their life.

Personally I fancy my chances of being hit by a meteorite as higher than those of being obliged to hand over my passwords under this law.

I don't think that UK police will get a section 49 notice just to get some random password because I am pretty sure that the NTAC requires a lot of information proving that they are looking for data that may help preventing future illegal actions or something like that.

So I think the police really know what are they looking for when obtaining this warrant.

Yes. The form islong and very thorough. No random police person could fill it in - you have to be fairly expert to provide the relevant detail.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com