Judge Orders Child Porn Suspect To Decrypt His Hard Drives 802
An anonymous reader writes "After having first decided against forcing a suspect to decrypt a number of hard drives that were believed to be his and to contain child pornography, a U.S. judge has changed his mind and has now ordered the suspect to provide law enforcement agents heading the investigation with a decrypted version of the contents of his encrypted data storage system, or the passwords needed to decrypt forensic copies of those storage devices. Jeffrey Feldman, a software developer at Rockwell Automation, has still not been charged with any crime, and the prosecution initially couldn't prove conclusively that the encrypted hard drives contained child pornography or were actually Feldman's, which led U.S. Magistrate Judge William Callahan to decide that forcing him to decrypt them would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. But new evidence has made the judge reverse his first decision (PDF): the FBI has continued to try to crack the encryption on the discs, and has recently managed to decrypt and access one of the suspect's hard drives... The storage device was found to contain 'an intricate electronic folder structure comprised of approximately 6,712 folders and subfolders,' approximately 707,307 files (among them numerous files which constitute child pornography), detailed personal financial records and documents belonging to the suspect, as well as dozens of his personal photographs."
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most likely they had a dictionary attack (maybe hand-tuned to the suspect) get a lucky it.
If they had "broken" it, they wouldn't have stopped at one drive.
Here's his best defense.. (Score:4, Insightful)
He should inform the honorable judge that he's forgotten the decryption parameters or whatever they are called.
This way, he puts the ball back into their court. That is, to prove that he indeed still remembers these parameters.
That will be a tough one to prove.
Funny ould world we live in (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
I see we're into the land of "Monster until proven Person" now...
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting. I just read about a normal guy who turned pedophile, was discovered to have a 'massive' brain tumor, had it removed, and promptly returned to being normal.
Glad you weren't ever alone in a room with him.
Re:FBI shits on the constitution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absent any proof there was child porn on the drives the suspect couldn't be compelled to decrypt them to provide that evidence.
The FBI however was free to try and decrypt the drives.
After proving that drives at least contained some child porn it was no longer possible.
Imagine the same scenario with a house. The police think you have a grow op. But they don't have any actual proof of a grow up. They have a power bill, show up at your door and you say 'sorry, I run a server farm, not a grow op, no you cannot come in'. The police not believing this story keep snooping around, they watch you bring in lamps and fertilizer and numerous suspicious people bringing packages out. Eventually they get some sort of valid evidence that you have at least one growing illegal plant in your house. Now they can get a warrant, and you have to let them in.
You don't have to provide the police a key to your house, unless they can convince a judge there is definitely something illegal hidden behind your front door. Then you're boned.
If the decrypted version... (Score:3, Insightful)
So I just read the judge's order granting the ex parte request, and there is something I am confused about. If the 'limited decrypted version' they supposedly have contained child pornography why is he still not charged with a crime? Something seems fishy here.
"In addition to numerous files of child pornography, the decrypted part of
Feldman’s storage system contains detailed personal financial records and
documents belonging to Feldman"
I'm willing to bet they have the file structure (names of files) but have no actual file data, in which case the governments request would add a lot to the case instead of the "little to none" the judge is using to justify the use of the forgone conclusion doctrine.
Not defending anyone for child pornography, I just like everyone else don't like seeing the forced self incrimination of people using the 5th amendment.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Conspiracy bits aside, if the FBI found something, why would they demand he open the gates to more?
Could they not simply prosecute him based on just what they have so far? That way there would be no 5th Amendment violation, and they would (should?) have sufficient evidence so far to successfully prosecute him anyway.
Re:FBI shits on the constitution. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to provide the police a key to your house, unless they can convince a judge there is definitely something illegal hidden behind your front door.
This is the crucial issue, which you are glossing over. You DON'T have to provide the police a key to your house, even if they can convince a judge that there is definitely something illegal hidden behind your front door. If the cops show up to your house with a warrant, there's no requirement that you unlock the door for them. If you don't, they'll just break the door down.
What's happening here is quite different. The judge is compelling this man to assist the police who are trying to incriminate him. This is like issuing a search warrant where you are compelled to tell the police where your hiding places are.
Re:Here's his best defense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if they get caught (which would be fairly likely) no one would ever buy anything from them again and they would face more law suites than you could count. That why not.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Besides, they're making things up -->
has absolutely no technical standing and contains all marketing words. If they successfully decrypted a
single drive, and found evidence, it is strong enough to build a case.
Encryption is boolean; you either discovered the key, or you haven't. There isn't a "key" out there the will
give a "partial" decryption. This is nonsense. So, what is happening is that they have evidence to move forward
with an indictment, but they're trying to set a legal precedented to override the 5th for future cases, IMHO.
This is basically the same tactic used in U.S. schools on the children now a days. You know, Billy said you did it,
so why don't you tell us what you did...
CAPTCHA = 'mischief' Wow! it says it all!
Re:This makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say you killed 5 people with 5 different guns and you put each of those guns in a separate safe. The government comes along and unlocks one of the safes and inside that safe is the purchase receipt for all five safes with your name on it (thus proving you own and have access to all the safes). By your logic, they've got a good case for murder on the basis of what they found in one safe, so they should just leave the other four alone.
What the judge is saying is that now that the government can show that you own (and have access to) the other safes and now that they can show it's likely they'll find the other four guns in those safes, there's no longer a Fifth Amendment question since you're not self-incriminating (by providing previously unknown or unprovable evidence against yourself). Rather, it becomes an issue of restricting access to evidence the government already knows about. In other words, the judge can't force you to open a random safe that may or may not be your's, and you can't be ordered to produce a murder weapon you may or may possess or have access to, but you most certainly can be forced to provide access to an area or container which is provably your's and which is likely to contain material evidence of your crimes.
Re:"constitutes" child pornography. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the legal definition specifies "lascivious" media rather than some laundry list of people, poses and acts. I suspect there's Kim Possible and My Little Pony erotic fan-art posted on Tumblr and Deviantart that meets the technical criteria for child pornography every day.
Yes, that is true. Child Pornography is a scare word to make jurors convict. In reality, the legal definition of child pornography, while varying by location, may constitute such things as:
Nude pictures or movies of a 1 year old
Depictions of sex or nudity of a 17.999999 year old even if they look 25 years old.
Depictions of sex or nudity where someone holds the opinion that they look less than 18 years old even if they are 25 years old.
Pictures or movies depicting sex with a greater than 18 year old who is dressed in schoolgirl outfit or wearing pigtails in an attempt to look like a less than 18 year old even if it is still obvious that they are 25 years old or even older.
Pictures or movies depicting sex with 30 to 40 year old women filed under the heading "Teen Sex".
Pictures or movies of cartoons depicting nudity or sex of characters whom someone holds the opinion that the character looks less old than a real life18 year old.
Nude or partially unclothed photos taken of themselves by owners of a phone who are less than 18, or appear to be less than 18 or who are trying to appear to be less than 18.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> an intricate electronic folder structure comprised of approximately 6,712 folders and subfolders, approximately 707,307 files
Sounds like a regular disk drive structure to me. Nothing particularly "intricate" about it.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we need a new form or encryption which offers two views of the encrypted storage. One view hides the content, the other exposes it normally.
Or, perhaps the second password offers a self destruct.
I guarantee you they have a bit level copy of the drive. I'm sure these guys are smart enough to not work on the original drive. Destroying one wouldn't do much but make them start working on another backup.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:3, Insightful)
Geez. Maybe to find out more info on potential child victims?
Re:I imagine it's to set a precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
The "it's manufactured data" angle would also be interesting, since presumably they could have obtained pictures and financial data from other sources to make it appear that way. Given that the FBI has "considerable resources" to expend on this type of thing, it's not that unreasonable to ask how those resources were expended: decrypting the drive, or manufacturing evidence which can only be disproven if the drive is decrypted with the keys he may or may not have in his possession, since if it's manufactured, it might still not be his drive.
You have a problem here. All the feds have to do is go before the judge, start with an archived copy of the original disk which can be proven to be bitwise identical, apply the correct decryption process, and when out pops all the data they claim was there you'll have to explain how they got the original encrypted bytes to decrypt directly into the alleged criminal data.
I think the chances of there being a "key" that results in enough data for a criminal prosecution when applied to innocuous encrypted data are very very very slim.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Your understanding is horrifically wrong. Your guess at "facts" is laughable. It wouldn't be laughable except you're in the minority and won't actually have any impact. What pedophiles need is mental health care, not prison. Unless, of course, they've actually caused harm (only a small percentage has, you're mistaken with your assumptions that you seem to think are facts) and if they've caused harm they need to see the inside of a correctional facility until they've reached the point where they're able to accept the help from mental health and are able to not harm in the future.
I did a whole bunch of research (I was bored, drinking, and legitimately curious as I don't see the attraction and wanted to understand) for a Fark thread at one point. I, too, thought similarly to how you seem to think. I was wrong, very much so, and have no problem changing my views based on the facts. You're a zealot on a witch hunt and will be seen as one as the tides turn. They're already starting to turn with more people being made aware of the facts and changing their views of registries and extreme punishments.
Actually seek out the facts and respond accordingly if you want. It is not difficult. Follow some links, read some studies, and then make up your mind. Until then you're operating based on myths and hyperbole. If that's what you want to do then all the more power to you but the rest of the world isn't going to join you and will find your credibility lacking.
If the 5th protected him before, it still does. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing it's this part of it that protected him:
"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"
There's no clause in the fifth amendment that says "...but if we have good evidence you're guilty, then you have to tell us what we need to know in order to get more evidence."
The police put you in a room and say "CONFESS", and you refuse. Judge says "that's right--you don't have to confess to anything. In fact, you don't have to say anything at all. You can remain silent."
Later, the police find some evidence that suggests you really did something illegal. And really socially repulsive.
Judge thinks for 2 seconds and realizes "Who's going to defend a kiddy diddler? I can rule however I want against this guy and get almost no political backlash. But if I "defend the constitution", I'm a liberal judge letting a monster get away on a technicality." Not a difficult decision for a pragmatic public servant. "Let the beatings begin.".
First they came for the child rapists and I said nothing because everyone would think I was one, too.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's already been incriminated
So why hasn't he been charged?
it's a "foregone conclusion"
The foregone conclusion they're talking about is just that the drives are his.
He's not even being forced to tell the cops his password/passphrase, he's only instructed to enter it unobserved into the system so the disks will be unencrypted.
That's a distinction that only a lawyer would think mattered.
So you can't argue that they cops are learning anything new regarding putting this guy in prison.
Additional counts. Other crimes. All kinds of incriminating stuff could be on the other drives.
If their real interest was in using the stuff on the other drives to pursue other criminals, they cut cut him a deal (somewhat reduced sentence, whatever) to get him to decrypt them. That's a tactic they use all the time, and often with good reason. Here they want an Alice in Wonderland interpretation of the 5th.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, from the Jargon File [catb.org]:
rubber-hose cryptanalysis [catb.org] : n.
[sci.crypt newsgroup] The technique of breaking a code or cipher by
finding someone who has the key and applying a rubber hose vigorously and
repeatedly to the soles of that luckless person's feet until the key is
discovered. Shorthand for any method of coercion: the originator of the
term drily noted that it can take a surprisingly short time and is
quite computationally inexpensive relative to other cryptanalysis
methods. Compare social engineering [catb.org],
brute force. [catb.org]
Wikipedia also has it the term Thermorectal cryptanalysis [wikipedia.org] for it, which brings disturbing images to mind. The comments on Schneier on Security suggest that hot soldering irons [schneier.com] are involved. :-S
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:4, Insightful)
Raping children is bad and all, but if that is the case, this is a ridiculous attempt to control what people fap to rather than an attempt to prevent more child rape.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a doctor. I know about pain. What causes it. What stops it. All the different types of it, and the ways to cause each one (and for how long). One of my professors during residency had been recruited back in the 80s by a Central American country to assist it with some interrogations.
I don't enjoy watching people suffer. That's a good thing, because I would be very good at making it happen.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the prosecutor hasn't filed charges yet. They're still working on the case.
You make it sound like "gosh, we just haven't gotten around to it yet". If they had any real evidence they could, and should, charge him in a heartbeat. Then they can keep him in jail or push for a very high bail (easy in a CP case), which makes him much less of a flight risk than just being a suspect. If they're "still working on the case" after that they can always add more charges later.
And that the images of [CP] on them are his. You forgot that tiny detail.
They don't know what's on the drives that are still encrypted. You forgot that tiny detail. If there was real CP on what they did decrypt then there is no excuse for not charging him ASAP.
It is a distinction that shows he's not being forced to provide information that the government doesn't already possess.
Of course he's being asked to provide information they don't already possess. Why else would they be trying to get it? What the "foregone conclusion" exception to the 5th means is that you have to hand over evidence, not information, if they can show it's a foregone conclusion that the evidence exists.
They have the disks and proof of his crime
Great. Why don't they use it?
he's not even expected to tell them the password.
That's a distinction that only a lawyer could think mattered.
You're very good at telling a prosecutor how to do his job.
As are you. What's your point? Everybody here is playing armchair prosecutor, judge, cop, fiddler, whatever.
They'll be in a much better position to offer a deal when the full extent of the crime is known.
That's true. Unfortunately the Bill of Rights sometimes makes the work of police and prosecutors more difficult. That's the price we pay for a society where the government can't arrest and imprison anybody they want. The people who wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights were no fools. Each and every right in there was to prevent government abuses that had a long history.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bottom line - the 5th guarantees that you do not have to provide ANY EVIDENCE to be used against you. The judge is requiring the accused to provide evidence intended to assist in his own prosecution.
Parsing words won't change that bottom line. It can only make you feel better about having coerced the hapless fool under your control.
Re:Funny ould world we live in (Score:5, Insightful)
So you wouldn't mind if pictures of you being raped were being looked at on the internet? Fair enough, personally I'd have a problem with that and want it to be a crime to look at them, but maybe that's just me, I have been known to be a little odd.
Well, when someone puts a 1px hidden IFRAME in a cross site scripting or SQL injection exploit will you still "want it to be a crime" when you're thrown in jail for your regular downloading of illegal 1's and 0's? This isn't hypothetical. I clean this shit of of servers about 3 times a year. Skiddies are thumbing their nose at the idea of their teen girlfriend sexting pics being, "child porn". They're putting their own ex GFs pics online as well as "loli" manga pics they find attractive. Now, that means you should go and shred your hard drive and encrypt the fuck out of it. If you've been anywhere online you could have kiddie porn on your PC. Just the way the police state likes it... They have an excuse and evidence to hunt any "witch" they want.
Personally, I have been raped. I wouldn't give a rats ass if you want to look at pics of it, so long as you're not raping me or anyone else to get new pics. Folks looking at what constitutes child porn these days could be looking at voluntarily taken "selfies" and drawings. Kids taking nudes of themselves aren't raping themselves. Drawings aren't alive.
Furthermore, my little brother was being threatened and had fist sized rocks thrown at him when he was walking past a middle school. We reported the kids to the police. Guess what? THEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING. There has been no crime unless he actually gets injured. Unless you're actually raping a kid, no one is being harmed by looking at images. It shouldn't be illegal unless they want to actually start arresting people for THINKING about assault -- They're not even arresting folks for Actual Attempted Assault.
Re:Here's his best defense.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:4, Insightful)
but they would also lose the intelligence windfall of any data that might be on the other drives.
I wouldn't call porn of any kind an "intelligence windfall". They would find more porn to wank to. That doesn't seem like a sufficiently good reason to shit all over the 5th amendment. They already have enough evidence to convict. There is no reason whatsover to decrypt the other drives. Drives which they clearly have the capacity to decrypt themselves anyway. No. The only purpose here is to increase the power of the FBI in future cases by setting a precedent that the 5th amendment can be safely ignored. Well as long as the crime someone is being accused of is an unpopular one.
Re:"constitutes" child pornography. (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no idea if this guy is really a sick fuck, guilty, innocent, or what, but child pornography is, exactly as parent says, a scare word.
Try watching a show like Law & Order some time. Daytime TV viewers are led to a fictitious view of the world in which every nice-seeming guy is actually a serial child raper and every law-breaking brute a cop who could put the scumbags behind bars if only the laws weren't rigged in favor of the criminals.
I'd be unsurprised to find that a sample of lower-educated Americans would reflexively convict, unable to distinguish a real situation from good-and-evil fantasies on tv.
A little perspective couldn't hurt either. The age of consent is as low as 16 in some states of the U.S.. Whatever the reasons for child pornography laws, it seems pretty silly when photographs showing images which suggest an action which may not have been taken are considered vile and evil despite the action that's suggested being, itself, perfectly legal. If your moral sense revolts at 17.99999999999 year-olds having sex, you may want to put it in perspective:
In 1880, the age of consent was 10 in most states but ranged from 7 in Delaware to 12 across nine states and the District of Columbia.[42]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America#History_2).
While sex with a 12-year-old is well beyond the bounds of disgusting, a 17-year-old who's been (legally) sexually active for a year and takes a picture of herself to send to her boyfriend is another story entirely.
Re:Here's his best defense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
especially when they think they are doing the right thing.
Most real LEOs don't understand the whole concept of right or wrong. At best they might understand the difference between legal and illegal.The idea that LEOs care about right and wrong is a myth based on Hollywood screen writers who've probably never actually met a real cop.
Re:What kind of encryption did the FBI break? (Score:4, Insightful)