Judge orders defendant to decrypt PGP-protected laptop

[Ivan Krstić]

On Mar 3, 2009, at 6:38 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> So, the court is not going to pay the least attention to your
> elaborate claims that you just like storing the output of your random
> number generator on a large chunk of your hard drive. They really
> don't give a damn about claims like that. Actually they do
> care. They'll be pissed off that you're wasting their time.


You miss the point.

Re-read the link I provided that explains how TrueCrypt implements  
hidden volumes. A hidden TrueCrypt volume is *completely  
indistinguishable* from empty space in a regular TrueCrypt volume.  
That's what makes it hidden!

As I implied in the 2004 message in the context of political  
dissidents, a good use for hidden volumes isn't to distract your  
prosecutor with kittens and sunsets. That's just plain stupid,  
regardless of whether you're dealing with a US judge or someone whose  
preferred method of communication involves a pair of pliers and a  
blowtorch.

The idea is to present an alternative but *plausible* set of  
information that's far less incriminating than the real deal, such as  
only mildly illegal material or legal material that the owner would  
still plausibly wish to keep secret for social reasons. I gave you a  
concrete example: hardcore or fetish porn (legal, but plausibly not  
the kind of thing whose possession you wish to advertise) provided to  
investigators to mask a secret volume with kiddie porn.

If you give me the benefit of the doubt for having a reasonable  
general grasp of the legal system and not thinking the judge is an  
automaton or an idiot, can you explain to me how you think the judge  
can meet the burden of proof for contempt in this instance? Surely you  
don't wish to say that anyone using encryption can be held in contempt  
on the _chance_ they're not divulging all the information; what, then,  
is the other explanation?

--
Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org

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