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5th Amendment rights and encryption.

Citizen

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I wish I could beat this into the heads of our IT people.

Oh, I see. Its OK to beat things into people's heads, but its a 5A violation to beat it out of them.

:D



I'm reading a book on the history of the right against self-incrimination. Oh. My. God. Anybody who knows the history of what it took to wrest the right against self incrimination away from government would not even think twice about whether it should apply in a certain new type of situation.

I would say, don't stop here. Keep reinforcing it, make it stronger, make it applicable in even more situations. Nail it down, weld it fast. We never, ever want to go there again--back to when it was an open question. For lack of it, people were burned at the stake, had their property seized, were exiled, or imprisoned. For lack of it, a refusal to swear to confess was treated the same as if the person had confessed--conviction pro confesso.

Bad, bad, bad. Dark, dark, dark. Lit by the flames of the convicted.

And, this is only the first half of the book.
 
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Citizen

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title and author please?

Origins of the Fifth Amendment, The Right Against Self-Incrimination. Leonard Levy. Roughly $20 in paperback.

This book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History.

Another book of his that I really liked is Origins of the Bill of Rights, which primarily covers the colonial era in the run-up to the revolution while touching a bit here and there on deeper history. Whereas, his book on 5A starts with Henry II creating the forerunner of juries in the mid to late 1100's.*

The 5A book, being devoted to one right and a couple aspects of it, has the space to go into much more historical detail. The scholarship and research must have been a killer. Just taking note of all the little superscripts (leading to citations for sources) makes for quite an impression of the amount effort put into this book.

*Interesting little bit of info. Do you know why a jury's official determination is called a verdict? The roots of verdict are Latin, ver refers to truth. Dict refers to speak. Well, in Henry II's time, jurors didn't try a case. Judges rode on circuit. Basically, a number of locals were called before the judge. It was supposed that the locals knew about the case. So, they were commanded, on oath if I recall, to speak the truth as to what they knew about the case. The judge then rendered his decision. This group of truth-speakers eventually evolved into a jury that tried the case.
 
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Motofixxer

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I think this is fitting explanation of you and your rights, from a judge no less. I believe the message is pretty obvious


A Belligerent Claimant
by Michael H. Keehn
November 22, 2006
I have a friend who was recently charged with numerous misdemeanors. He was charged
because he had the audacity to confront County Government and government officials with
doing their jobs and answering some basic questions1. In the world of legal issues, there is this
rule called tacit admission. Which government uses against ‘we the people’ on a regular basis.
The rule works as follows:
Government, or more likely one of its agents, accuses us of a wrong doing, perhaps
speeding or driving without a valid drivers license. If we do not contest or dispute this
accusation, in writing, signed under penalty of perjury, and file it with the court clerk
under our case number, then the accusation against us stands by virtue of our silence...
TACIT ADMISSION.
In my friends many written communications (sent certified mail, return receipt requested), with
government officials, they were given 30 days with which to respond to the questions and legal
determinations that were asserted. A legal determination asserted would be no different than a
policeman writing you a ticket for speeding. The officer has asserted a legal determination that
you were speeding. It is no different. You can make legal determinations and assert them, same
as they do.
And if government officials do not contest nor dispute the legal determinations you’ve asserted,
then under the rule of Tacit Admission, the asserted legal determination is accepted as fact. This
is how it would work if government and its courts did not operate criminally. In my friends case,
they excluded all such cases of Tacit Admission, the court excluded his affidavit of facts on the
matter which had been signed under penalty of perjury and filed with the court clerk on his case.
Then the court, item by item, excluded the foundations of his defense.
the question here proposed is ‘what to do if faced with a similar experience?’ Fortunately we
occasionally have a judge that is on our side. We don’t always see them as such, but, at times,
they are truly trying to help us. Such is the case of Federal Judge James Alger Fee. In U.S. vs.
JOHNSON (76 Fed, Supp. 538), Federal District Court Judge James Alger Fee ruled that...
"The privilege against self-incrimination is neither accorded to the passive resistant, not
to the person who is ignorant of his rights, nor to one who is indifferent thereto. It is a
FIGHTING clause. It's benefits can be retained only by sustained COMBAT. It cannot be
claimed by attorney or solicitor. It is valid only when insisted upon by a BELLIGERENT
claimant in person." McAlister vs. Henkle, 201 U.S. 90, 26 S.Ct. 385, 50 L. Ed. 671;
Commonwealth vs. Shaw, 4 Cush. 594, 50 Am. Dec. 813; Orum vs. State, 38 Ohio App.
171, 175 N.E. 876.
In this ruling the judge has just instructed you how to proceed. He has said that rights are not
accorded the passive resistant. Rights are not available to the individual who is ignorant of his
rights. Nor are rights available to a person who is indifferent, or in other words, a person who
simply doesn’t care. And further, judge Fee has clearly informed you that your attorney can not
claim your rights for you. Which is another way of saying that your attorney can not truly
represent you. Judge Fee tells you that rights are only available to a belligerent claimant in
person. He further stated that to claim your rights in a court of this country, you must be willing
to engage in sustained combat.
There you have it. You are charged with negligent homicide for shooting a crazed drug addict
who entered your home and nearly hacked the arm off your wife with a machete and was going
after your child with the same machete when you shot and killed him. And in a pre-trial motion
hearing the judge rules that you can not mention the machete nor the injury to your wife. That
you can not mention the fact that this crazed individual drove his car into the front room of your
home. Nor can you mention that he set fire to your house. While this might seem a reach to
you, if the crazed drug addict is actually a government agent acting to take your money, then
this is the type of logic you can expect. It is the type of logic that was applied to my friend in the
structuring of his defense. Anything that makes your case, anything that enhances your defense,
anything that works against the government case against you, WILL NOT BE ALLOWED if at
all possible.
While the judge may rule that these matters are not allowed, the fact is that you and your family
have paid for time in court. You would proceed as though the motions that limit your defense
were never heard or approved. And when you are ruled in contempt you still don’t give up.
Even if the judge puts you in jail for contempt, you don’t give up... remember, sustained
combat. You’ve paid the price to be here, its your defense, not the courts. You become that
Belligerent Claimant in person that Judge James Alger Fee told you to become in order to
secure your rights. Not the courts rights, not the prosecutions rights... your rights.
It’s your life. You can lay down and play dead, be passive, ignorant or indifferent and go to jail
or pay the fine, or you can stand up like an adult and make your case.
 

Stanley

Regular Member
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Feb 1, 2012
Messages
375
Location
Reston, VA
Assuming my drive was encrypted I'd give you the key to the backup OS. :rolleyes:

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

Guys, TrueCrypt and some other solutions address this issue specifically.

While clearly there are "rights" issues, this issue has been effectively nullified for years.

So they FBI forces me to give up my encryption key? What can they say when they put it in and find a completely sanitized version of Ubuntu linux? LOL

Even if they make me give up my secondary key they'll find more "nothing."

Nothing stops you from practicing true security and having multiple layers of encryption consisting of multiple false paths and honey pots. Shrug. It's a game. Kinda like how some of us continually joust with the RIAA and continue to download media with impunity.

Like a handgun, the computer is a tool. Proper planning, practice and research makes even 11 year old children as formidable opponents as government computer scientists.

This guy in the story had a poorly planned strategy. Known resistance is never as good as unknown resistance. What the government doesn't know can't hurt you so to speak...

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

Plausible Deniability

In case an adversary forces you to reveal your password, TrueCrypt provides and supports two kinds of plausible deniability:

Hidden volumes (see the section Hidden Volume) and hidden operating systems (see the section Hidden Operating System).

Until decrypted, a TrueCrypt partition/device appears to consist of nothing more than random data (it does not contain any kind of "signature"). Therefore, it should be impossible to prove that a partition or a device is a TrueCrypt volume or that it has been encrypted (provided that the security requirements and precautions listed in the chapter Security Requirements and Precautions are followed). A possible plausible explanation for the existence of a partition/device containing solely random data is that you have wiped (securely erased) the content of the partition/device using one of the tools that erase data by overwriting it with random data (in fact, TrueCrypt can be used to securely erase a partition/device too, by creating an empty encrypted partition/device-hosted volume within it). However, you need to prevent data leaks (see the section Data Leaks) and also note that, for system encryption, the first drive track contains the (unencrypted) TrueCrypt Boot Loader, which can be easily identified as such (for more information, see the chapter System Encryption). When using system encryption, plausible deniability can be achieved by creating a hidden operating system (see the section Hidden Operating System).

Although file-hosted TrueCrypt volumes (containers) do not contain any kind of "signature" either (until decrypted, they appear to consist solely of random data), they cannot provide this kind of plausible deniability, because there is practically no plausible explanation for the existence of a file containing solely random data. However, plausible deniability can still be achieved with a file-hosted TrueCrypt volume (container) by creating a hidden volume within it (see above).

Notes
When formatting a hard disk partition as a TrueCrypt volume (or encrypting a partition in place), the partition table (including the partition type) is never modified (no TrueCrypt "signature" or "ID" is written to the partition table).

There are methods to find files or devices containing random data (such as TrueCrypt volumes). Note, however, that this should not affect plausible deniability in any way. The adversary still should not be able to prove that the partition/device is a TrueCrypt volume or that the file, partition, or device, contains a hidden TrueCrypt volume (provided that you follow the security requirements and precautions listed in the chapter Security Requirements and Precautions and in the subsection Security Requirements and Precautions Pertaining to Hidden Volumes).
 
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Stanley

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Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
375
Location
Reston, VA
password_strength.png



This, while accurate, is no longer the preferred method.

Multiple-factor authentication has long been the superior method. Not so much because it is stronger security but because it effectively mitigates poor password practice, it's much easier to invalidate a lost token, and having session based random passwords prevents passwords from being utilized past the end of that session.

Of course, the weakest point in security is not IT or policies or passwords but the user...
 
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H

Herr Heckler Koch

Guest
Appeals Court Upholds Constitutional Right Against Forced Decryption, Fifth applies

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/...onstitutional-right-against-forced-decryption
EFF said:
Privilege Against Self-Incrimination Applies to Act of Decrypting Data

San Francisco - A federal appeals court has found a Florida man's constitutional rights were violated when he was imprisoned for refusing to decrypt data on several devices. This is the first time an appellate court has ruled the 5th Amendment protects against forced decryption – a major victory for constitutional rights in the digital age.

[ ... ]

A similar court battle is ongoing in Colorado, where a woman named Ramona Fricosu has been ordered by the court to decrypt the contents of a laptop seized in an investigation into fraudulent real estate transactions. EFF also filed a friend of the court brief in that case, arguing that Fricosu was being forced to become a witness against herself. An appeals court recently rejected her appeal, and she has been ordered to decrypt the information this month.
 

slowfiveoh

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Richmond, VA
Even kei the current most powerful supercomputer in the world



It would still take an enormous amount of time.

AFAIK its all theory math, but.. (from wiki) AES permits the use of 256-bit keys. Breaking a symmetric 256-bit key by brute force requires (2 to the 128th) power times more computational power than a 128-bit key. A device that could check a billion billion (10to the 18th power) AES keys per second (if such a device could ever be made) would in theory require about (3×10 to the 51st power) years to exhaust the 256-bit key space.

Which is like what.. 50,955,671,114,250,072,156,962,268,275,658,377,807,020,642,877,435,085 years?

This is all brute force method, unless someone has the key, its going to take whoever a very long time to crack the encryption.

-Image the encrypted disk.
-Divide entire known key range into segments of available machines.
-Brute force key from your deep server farm (Potentially hundreds of machines) from given range.

It's doable. Big time doable.

Your method is the application of one machine and its resources to one disk.

When you have 400 machines all hosting 4 or 5 virtual servers with properly set affinity, the prospect of cracking the key becomes viable.


Just throwing out a bone. :)
 

Citizen

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This may not be as esoteric a question as one might think. I recently read where a few early American (post revolution) courts ruled the right against self-incrimination applied against being forced to turn over private papers. New York, I think. Smuggling case, I think. Business records. I'll look it up.

One rationale given was, as we discussed above, that forcing someone to give paper evidence against himself was a torturous against that person's conscience as forcing him to speak against himself.
 

KBCraig

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This may not be as esoteric a question as one might think. I recently read where a few early American (post revolution) courts ruled the right against self-incrimination applied against being forced to turn over private papers. New York, I think. Smuggling case, I think. Business records. I'll look it up.

One rationale given was, as we discussed above, that forcing someone to give paper evidence against himself was a torturous against that person's conscience as forcing him to speak against himself.

I've heard arguments that this applies for commercial drivers being required to keep a log and produce it on demand. Legally, I agree that such laws violate the 5th Amendment. On a practical level, the bureaucrats will simply change it from a criminal matter to a civil violation, and revoke your CDL.

Logical people would say it's the same thing, but we seldom expect logic in legal rulings.
 

VW_Factor

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Your method is the application of one machine and its resources to one disk.

When you have 400 machines all hosting 4 or 5 virtual servers with properly set affinity, the prospect of cracking the key becomes viable.


Just throwing out a bone. :)

I take it you are not familiar with super computing clusters.

The most powerful computers of our day and age are much more powerful than 400 machines hosting virtual servers. Heck the computing power of a single high end GPU reaches about the computing power of 400 standard machines hosting virtual servers.

Logistically, Kei (K computer, SPARC64 VIIIfx 2.0GHz) has a bit over 500k logical cores. (548352 to be precise)

Without getting back into the theory math, yeah. Not viable, not even a little bit.

fujitsuksupercomputerfeb24-620x350.jpg
 

Repeater

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Nov 5, 2007
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Richmond, Virginia, USA
Forcing Defendant to Decrypt Hard Drive Is Unconstitutional, Appeals Court Rules

Forcing a criminal suspect to decrypt hard drives so their contents can be used by prosecutors is a breach of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

It was the nation’s first appellate court to issue such a finding. And the outcome comes a day after a different federal appeals court refused to entertain an appeal from another defendant ordered by a lower federal court to decrypt a hard drive by month’s end.

Thursday’s decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that an encrypted hard drive is akin to a combination to a safe, and is off limits, because compelling the unlocking of either of them is the equivalent of forcing testimony.
 
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