Personally, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now that the police can't go to Apple for your data, we'll start seeing more judges ordering users to unlock their phones to allow them to be searched. I don't think it will be long before such a case reaches SCOTUS, and then we'll see how that works out...
While lower court decisions have gone both ways, according to wikipedia,
in United States v. Doe, the United States Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit ruled on 24 February 2012 that forcing the decryption of
one's laptop violates the Fifth Amendment [1]
Perhaps a more practical problem is even with a 5 digit pin, it's entirely possible to simply try all combinations. You probably need more than 8 digits before that becomes impossible.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_State...
Given a long time. Don't forget iOS slows your brute-force attempts down substantially. I'd be curious how long a brute-force attack would take given the current behavior of the OS.
Contempt of court? Fine and then jail him for non-compliance. Seize Lavabit's assets if required. I doubt he would have let it come to that.
But their solution was analogous to "won't give us back that alleged stolen $20 we told you about? We want your whole bank balance."
Aww hell naw.
I guess he made his point, but he screwed over his customers twice in this case. First by dumbing down his crypto to be easier to use and allowing it to be broken as it did by the feds, and second screwing every customer over by not complying and shutting down his service.
Is not that against 5th amendment?