Teen Jailed for Refusing to Give Up His Password

[Blessedman]

Don't we have laws here in the USA protecting ourselves from incriminating ones self? Hard to believe the UK doesn't have something similar. Thank god for the pilgrims!

 

[dertechie]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]yeah lets pat him on back. Let the NSA at it...use a super computer or two..be cracked in no time.[/citation]

Exponential time. There are more 50-character passwords than atoms in the observable universe. It's simply not feasible to brute force (and they'll have tried everything else).

 

[lejay]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]yeah lets pat him on back. Let the NSA at it...use a super computer or two..be cracked in no time.[/citation]
two? Try an exponential number of super computers.

 

[scifi9000]

What if he's simply storing something extremely personal or embarrassing but not necessarily illegal? He has a right to protect his own things. If they find proof of child porn, then string him up by the testicles sure, but you need proof, not guilt by assumption. Arn't we supposd to be getting better over time? This sounds like the dark ages

 

[Zingam]

50 characters for a password! Now when I think that my passwords are mostly just a single character long (if the system allows that)...

 

[Zingam]

...I wonder if the authorities will ever be able to crack them???

 

[Zingam]

[citation][nom]pjmelect[/nom]I am from the UK and I have strong encrypted files on my PC that I do not know the password to as I change my password every month and I can only remember the past few month’s passwords. If the police raided me I would be unable to gave them all of the passwords to the files on my computer. Is it now illegal to forget your passwords?[/citation]

Being the fascist country that UK is, the answer is YES.

 

[pacapaca]

[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]yeah lets pat him on back. Let the NSA at it...use a super computer or two..be cracked in no time.[/citation]

A 50 char password using the standard 94 printable keyboard chars would give ~453,307,266,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations (assuming a completely random password). Good luck with that.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

What if it is nudes of himself when he was under 18? =o What will they do then?! HMN?!

 

[pacapaca]

Well the comment board truncated the 0s. 4.53307266 × 10^98.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]Being the fascist country that UK is, the answer is YES.[/citation]

Do you even know what fascism is? Because the UK couldn't really be much further away from that.

 

[doive1231]

Just get a Core i7 930 and 4 GB of RAM working on it.

 

[doive1231]

Because UK police only got Pentium IIIs.

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

[citation][nom]doive1231[/nom]Just get a Core i7 930 and 4 GB of RAM working on it.[/citation]
[citation][nom]doive1231[/nom]Because UK police only got Pentium IIIs.[/citation]

You do realise that if they start brute forcing the password now the guy will have died from old age before they crack his password yes?

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]Should have used a Solid State Drive...[/citation]

SSD's and mechanical disks are both classed as hard drives under the law (and the dictionary), he would have had to put it on a "removable disk" such as a floppy or usb stick to avoid the law on a technicality

 

[guardianangel42]

The UK wouldn't have this problem if the QUANTUM COMPUTERS!!!

Yeah, take that fifth ammendment, you just got quantified!!!

 

[Guest]

Of course, people forget he was suspected before they tried to gain access to his computer... so they have thus far got reason to think he is involved - which would require a certain level of proof to uphold the suspicion. If he divulges his password, the answer will be provided - anything that is personal will not feature in the investigation.

Simply put - he is admitting some level of guilt by hiding something, the age-old quandary - if he had nothing to hide, he would have passed over his password and had zero jail time. Instead he opts for jail time.

If the police have reason to suspect him, I see no problem in them wanting to review his files. People who say it will collapse freedom are exagerating a little - it will collapse *your* freedom if you happen to be suspected of something illegal. I'd rather he lose his freedom for the duration of the investigation to the police in order to answer whether he should be on the sex offenders register or not.

People have their principles, and this could be one of his, but there is a point where stubborness becomes selfish in the face of living in a society and the law of a given country.

 

[nuster100]

I think its purely a choice the Guy has made.

In the UK RIPA (what he was charged under)makes it an offence to not divulge a password or encryption key, so "forgetting" it is covered too.

At the end of the day, he will get 16 weeks, probably 8 behind bars and another 8 on license and the conviction will be "spent" within 3 years I believe. Compared to x number of years for child offences and being on the sex offenders register for life or a good number of years.

Bit of a no-brainer really. If he used AES256 the chance of the cracking it is non existent, unless the UK authorities have a back door to it, which the certainly would not confirm by using it in a case that they would perceive to be as minor as this.

 

[fyasko]

[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]I absolutely loathe that attitude! If you've got nothing to hide then why not comply with the police who want to search your car, your computer... where does it end. How about if the police decide to just start doing door-to-door home searches. If you're not hiding anything, you should have no reason to object.Look, the guy is probably hiding something. But the burden of proof is on the police. Making it a crime to withhold passwords? Why not just waterboard the guy until he confesses. Or better yet, let's hook a car battery up to his testicles. No, I know... let's just work his ass over until he gives up the goods. Nah... that's barbaric! We can't torture people. Let's just put him in jail for 20 years or until he gives up the password and incriminates himself so we can put him in jail for 15 years.Fortunately, in the free (for now) United States, we have the 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination. I do concur with epol, in the absense of such protection, he should just claim that he forgot.[/citation]

wow, what kind of bizzaro world are you living in? take the blinders off.

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]Thorkle[/nom]Have you ever heard of the patriot Act? I'm an American, and we certainly aren't "free". The patriot act is used mostly for offenses not tied to terrorism. I like living here, but that's about it. America certainly has horrible policies, and that's why we "need" the largest military that has ever existed to protect us.[/citation]


you sir are inccorect , the US does NOT have teh alrgest military , we have the most technologically advanced military yes , but china currently holds the record for largest with over 2 million chinese serving their armed forces


oh but youa re right aboutt eh patriot act , i'veehard of them abuse and use that act for a larg number of things that had nothign to do with terrorist.