Re: hidden full system encryption on gnulinux?
Posted: 2016-05-20 10:08
You disregard experience just fine. And common sense as well. I mean how .... can you be? The rule of law implies that criminal facts need to be proven.edbarx wrote:Police represent authority which means a citizen's refusal to cooperate with their investigations is often seen as a corroborate that there is something sinister to hide on the part of the investigated.
Unless hiding evidence itself is a criminal act, you cannot be prosecuted for hiding any form of information.
I repeat: you cannot be prosecuted for such things.
They *have* no information on you. Therefore, they can also not really get away with doing anything to you based on nothing but the "random thought" that you are hiding something sinister based on nothing, particularly if you can justify what you do against a judge, or argue your way out of it, no matter how you wish to express that.
I have hidden data and this has made no difference whatsoever in a case against me, because it was not even a computer case to begin with, and the only consequences have been
- some amusement as law enforcement first tells me that they "will crack it just fine" but subsequently continues to plead with me and beg with me, even 6 months after the fact, for the passwords
- a measure of respect from these people as I did not comply, and as such, they had to see me as an equal of sorts
- the fact that due to their decryption attempts, I did not get my stuff back within the same time frame as I otherwise would have.
Then I will respond by saying that you are rather uneducated, and it was none other than Theodore Roosevelt who said "Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety", perhaps as a citation of others, I do not know. This was in response to the statement, or following the statement, that "No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion - or even good business". And it implies exactly what is being said here.In reply to your argument about "privacy", well, I value more my freedom, rather than risking a free stay at some police lockup facility or a prison.
So, people who "reason like me" are sometimes people in very good standing and far greater people than you or me have ever been thus far.
Your freedom then, is a lack of freedom. You sacrifice your ability to encrypt in the first place, only to bow down to law enforcement who tries to take that freedom away with you, with the promise that then they won't imprison you. And in the end you will find out you have been scammed.
Only if the state is without laws, and can act like a complete and utter tyrant, does your statement make any sense. The laws of the state often serve to protect civilians from abuse of authority. And even then, if you stand tall enough, you will garner respect, and I can tell you from experience that thus far they have had nothing on me as a result of encrypting some disks. I really doubt you have any experience whatsoever, in that sense.People who reason like you are forgetting the state has authority and I, you and every common Joe have none.
Judges in my country at least are critical beings who often have their own doubts as to the proper behaviour of police, and do not necessarily fall in line with whatever police is doing. They are usually rather intelligent people or they would not take office like that. They study law and are used to complex reasoning, they are also used to disregarding "underbelly sentiments" in favour of what the law actually says is allowed, and what not.
If you read jurisprudence (in this case, civil) you will often find extremely logical reasonings reducing a case to a single point that needs to be proven, disregarding everything else, because it has already been dealt with. Even though this takes away the heart out of it, and reduces it to something formal and nothing more, it does indicate that, especially in the case of criminal proceedings, judges are not unwilling to follow the letter of the law, and if you know it, the law provides much more protection for civilians than the random and spurious opinions of law enforcement officials.
In this my country it is not possible really to use a hiding of electronic information as proof in anything not related to it. If you are charged with hacking, stalking, theft, whatever, it doesn't matter, you cannot be convicted for any such thing simply based on something unrelated such as the hiding of data, because many times a proof needs to be "beyond reasonable doubt". Also even if police did use it as reason to pick you up and arrest you, they could not hold you for longer than a few hours unless it was for interrogation, but an official from the public ministry (a prosecutor) must give them permission for it. This is also a maximum of I believe 3 days -- not that it is pleasant being there. In practice it is never longer than a single night, but that depends on the case, and clearly "encryption" is no reason to keep you longer by itself. "Encryption" cannot even (in this country) be a reason to keep you for longer than those few hours. This is because the reason for keeping you is to keep you at the disposal of police, or, to prevent you from interfering with an investigation.
Moreover, the police that arrest you do not inspect your stuff, they send it off to the detectives apartment. "Your stuff was encrypted" is no reason to arrest you again. They will seek other ways to get at you, but cannot ever arrest you based solely on that. So what you are saying implies police having been witness to electronic communication, and arresting you based on that.
However, you make some kind of blanket statement that in essence only applies to "countries that enforce censorship" whatever that may be. Many countries enforce censorship, our western countries do as well. I have said that I live in a European country and you know full well that most of the web uses encryption constantly. Your statement, therefore, seems to be rather irrelevant to begin with, and more a way of saying something smart, than something that actually applies.
Now I will not say that if police were aware of such reasonings, they would not use that to hurt you on purpose. They probably have more means than I am aware of here, but this implies an ongoing relationship with them here, in which case you are already a "known person" to them. So just from the hypothetical position that you live in a country where all encryption is outlawed: from SSL/TLS to SSH to whatever Whatsapp uses these days.
It is obvious that China is not going to be this country. I doubt Iran is going to be this country. Maybe North Korea could be this country, but in that case you have different problems.
Not even Egypt, or anything like it, is really going to be this country. Sure China may block a lot of foreign websites, but they cannot in honesty block all SSL. So your theoretical country may not even exist on the planet earth. I don't say I know everything, I just say that it seems rather impractical for anyone these days.
So theoretically, someone using encrypted communication may very well set himself apart in a strong way. However if you keep a clear view, stand tall, and don't bargain, they may still not have anything against you. They still only have one bit of information. Even if they roughed you up and searched all your stuff. They might still only have 1 bit of information. And in that case, you have different problems. In that case, you live in a country that has not any sense of democracy. You probably get terrorized by police for other things as well (such as wearing condoms, or having them on you). Electronic communication is really a step beyond that and you have other challenges to meet in the meantime. So the point is really moot to begin with. It is like superimposing atomic bomb concerns on countries that have not even yet developed guns.
Not saying it could never be an issue. Just saying you'd have more things to worry about. Encryption may very well be the least of your concerns (or at least further down the line) and even without encryption, they could still hurt you. And even in that situation, hiding an encrypted USB stick might not hurt you all that much. Not really.
Or you study a bit of law yourself, I don't know. I will testify and vouch though that the inexpensive lawyers get in the way more than that they help.If you can afford a very expensive lawyer, it is completely a different story.