Encrypted Laptop Poses Legal Dilemma

(AP) -- When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing child pornography. But when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, authorities were stymied by a password-protected encryption program.

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• nilbud - Feb 08, 2008
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  Suck that drive into memory and get one of the Sandia supercomputers to bust the encryption, shouldn't take more than a few minutes work on a multi teraflop machine.
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• gopher65 - Feb 08, 2008
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  Only if he's using something silly like 8-bit encryption nilbud. It could take years or decades if he's using real encryption.
  
  And even if they could break this guy's encryption, that would only delay the question. Eventually we'll start using Quantum Encryption, and while I haven't actually checked into that, I've heard it's unbreakable with the key.
  
  So better to deal with this issue now, before it reaches a critical level.
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• Minnaloushe - Feb 08, 2008
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  The judiciary can of course authorize force to carry out searches. But, until now, there has always been sufficient "force" to accomplish whatever is necessary to fulfill the warrant.
  My thought experiment here is: If your house contained incriminating material and it was completely impregnable and could only be entered by a code that only you knew, could you be compelled to tell the code?
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• Soylent - Feb 08, 2008
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  Suck that drive into memory and get one of the Sandia supercomputers to bust the encryption, shouldn't take more than a few minutes work on a multi teraflop machine.

  
  
  Even with a modest encryption algorithm that could take decades using brute force. It's nearly trivial to extend old algorithms to larger keys; nothing short of a quantum computer or finding a significant weakness in the algorithm could hope to do anything about it.
  
  Flops are floating point operations. Integer math is used for the vast majority of encryption schemes and floating point performance is of no consequence.
  
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• ShadowRam - Feb 08, 2008
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  Could he be held in contempt? Could you go to Jail for simply refusing to give the key??
  (regardless of the contents)
  
  This case is very interesting.
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• mattytheory - Feb 08, 2008
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  ^shadowram: No, as in the article, he could simply argue against that action because in would violate his 5th ammendment right not to incriminate oneself. Therefore, any conviction (or punishment for contempt) based on that issue would be unconstitutional.
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• HarryStottle - Feb 08, 2008
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  Given that we're rapidly approaching the point in human history when our minds will meld with the machines, it is not unreasonable to argue that laptops (and your home pcs) are already extensions of your mind, albeit clumsy and insecure. Nevertheless, it follows from that, that persecuting someone for the content of their computer is essentially a thought crime.
  
  The devious and evil trick going on here is the attempt to win support for this level of intrusion on the basis that, for the moment, it's for a cause we all support (the prevention of child abuse or the identification of "the evil terrrrists"); but once you've granted the bastards access for that purpose, they automatically have access for all other purposes. Those stupid enough to believe that's a good idea deserve what is coming to them at a gulag near you...
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• avec - Feb 08, 2008
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  Right on, Harry. Lowering crime is no justification for increasing tyranny. What will keep authorities from abusing such power, their integrity? Haha. Some say, if you have nothing to hide, then why are you worried? Well I say, if I have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to see, so why are they looking unless it's out of paranoia? It was paranoia that lead to the holocaust, paranoia that lead to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, paranoia that has lead to the rendition and torture of many innocent men and children in this war on 'terror'. But I tell you, there is no greater terror than tyranny and no paranoia greater than government that mistrusts and surveils its own citizens. What is the death of three thousand to the oppression of millions? It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
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• Sirussinder - Feb 08, 2008
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  Looks like a job for a quantum computer...wait, it hasn't left the lab yet.
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• mikiwud - Feb 10, 2008
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  Send him to the UK.Here you can be automaticaly found guilty of an offence carrying a similar or greater punishment to an alleged offence you will not admit just for refusing to self-incriminate.(ie Speed cameras etc)
  No 5th here,if you stay silent you are presumed guilty.If the police latch onto you our sniveling government will keep changing the law until you are guilty of something,all condoned by the European Court of Civil Rights(?)
  Roll on becoming the 51st State.
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