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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

> Politely asking that you unlock it yourself, and letting you rot in a cell until you do.

Does anyone know the details of the second part of that sentence? Surely you wouldn't be in jail indefinitely until you give the password...

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You'll continually be found in contempt of court until you comply, until they break through some other way, or until they get tired of dealing with you.

Interestingly and strangely enough, jail can only be used for contempt of court when they believe that keeping you there has a chance of making you comply. If you make a principled enough stand that you are never going to comply, they legally have to let you out. In practice, this usually takes a long time.

An excellent example of that was Greg Anderson [1], Barry Bonds alleged source for Steroids.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Anderson_%28trainer%29

In England RIPA can be used to put you in prison for five years if you don't disclose the key.

RIPA is a bad law.

Same with Canada... 5 years for contempt of court if you refuse to reveal password.

These always make me wonder, but what happens if you genuinely forgot password and unable to reveal password?

I mean, I've had more than few occasion that I forgot password, and I observe people not being able to figure out their password all the time...

The record is 14 years. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=8101209

How can they demonstrate that you have not forgotten the password?

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