Password = Jail time

[bendixG15]

A teenager has been jailed for four months after refusing to hand over an encryption key for his computer to police.

http://www.itworld.com/legal/123153/teenager-jailed-refusing-hand-over-computer-password

[chowmein]

**** da police!

[lordsmurf]

I wonder if you could plead the 5th on that, in USA.
Typing would equate to speech, and you're not required to self-incriminate.

Interesting.

[deadrats]

for a supposedly "free" country, england does seem to have some of the more draconian laws in all of the free world.

but let's be honest with ourselves here, it's always been this way, if you look at the system of laws they developed going back hundreds of years, they always took a rather "interesting" approach to personal freedoms.

[rhegedus]

He was arrested in connection with child porn.

Keep the little shit in a cell with Big Vern until he coughs up the info.

[lordsmurf]

Ewww....
What's wrong with these people?

[bendixG15]

He was arrested in connection with child porn.

Keep the little shit in a cell with Big Vern until he coughs up the info.

Best as I can find out, that "little shit" was never charged or convicted of any type of sex crimes and the inference is that the police conjured it up to get him convicted on the password.

Read all about it and make your own decision ...........
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/10/police-drage-password-sex

Here's a piece of it ....................
However, in the meantime, an individual is now publicly associated with a serious investigation in respect of which was neither charged nor convicted; a police force publishes press releases as if they were tabloid stories and also furnishes highly-prejudicial information, but passes the buck if the press publishes it (which, of course, they will do); and the rest of us are really none the wiser whether a four month custodial sentence in this case was because of the gravity of the original suspicions or just for the implausibility of not knowing or noting down a 40 to 50 character password.

[rhegedus]

the inference is that the police conjured it up to get him convicted on the password

Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation.

Police seized his computer but could not access material on it as it had a 50-character encryption password.

Note, he would have to have been arrested prior to police obtaining a warrant for his PC, so the inference is clearly wrong.


To put this into context, the average bank account password is 10 characters in length. Using 26 upper case and 26 lower case letters together with 10 combinations for 0-9 gives each character 62 possibilities. Thus, the 10-character bank account password has approx 840,000,000,000,000,000 permutations. I'll let you work out the permutations for a 50-character password.

This does not prove guilt. But it does prove he had something to hide and was obstructing justice, hence his sentence.

[lordsmurf]

Note, he would have to have been arrested prior to police obtaining a warrant for his PC, so the inference is clearly wrong.

I don't know that this is necessarily true. At least not with U.S. law.
Does UK differ here?

[gadgetguy]

According to the UK law in question, the courts have a right to compel him to provide the key (password) even for the purpose of "detecting" a crime, which would seem to indicate that the subject wouldn't have to be arrested first, only that the authority have a reasonable expectation that he has the key to unlock the legally seized computer. The following section addresses compelling an individual to disclose an encryption key.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 c.23 Part III(3)
A disclosure requirement in respect of any protected information is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection if it is necessary—

(a)in the interests of national security;

(b)for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime; or

(c)in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents

[ranchhand]

Seems like this would be an embarrassment to the police; they don't have anyone that can crack a code?? C'mon, now.

[rhegedus]

4.16x10^89 permutations.

A trillion PCs doing a trillion permutations a second each won't solve this.