[WP] Pedo refuses to give up password to his hard drive

isn't that enough to convict him? What do they need the Z: drive for?

 

Dunno. Maybe the evidence was not conclusive enough.

 

A PGP company wouldn't be much help. The only way to break the encryption is through a trial and error method that would require a lot of computing power for a very long time.

 

Why would a customs official ask him to turn on his computer, and if he did, what kind of moron has files like that easily noticable?

DD

 

A real moron, apparently. I don't like the fact that anyone was asked to turn on their laptop. Seems like an invasion of privacy.



Impeach Bush.

 

Even if they can't compel the person to give up the combination, I'm sure the government has the authority to break in if they have a warrant.

 

he watches 2 year olds get raped during a diaper change, did you really have to ask?

 

The customs guy can testify to what he saw and perhaps get a conviction that way. But. they want to see his Z: file because they could get more counts against him, and -- who knows? -- may see the guy's face in a video, opening up a whole new dimension of prosecution.

Well, they are allowed to see the contents of the drive if they can manage to crack the encryption, just like they can search your house if they can kick in the door. The only difference is that they can order you to open the door but they might not be able to order you to surrender a password.

Actually, the real difference is that the police have work-arounds if you don't comply. If you refuse to unlock a door, they can break it. If you won't tell them the combination for a safe, they can drill the lock out. Here, it sounds like if you don't tell them the password, they have little recourse. So, I don't see how the government can let it stand simply because there is no other way to get the evidence in a timely fashion.

Of course, they should be running software to crack the password, even if it'll take years. The wheels of justice turn slowly anyway, and it'd be better to get a conviction 5 years from now then none at all.

 

Yeah, that was my opinion too.

Insanely expensive, i.e., impractical.

 

I'd also point out it was just a filename, which is not always representative of the video's contents. The fact that the article goes on to to mention a preteen undressing and committing a sex act would suggest to me that there was no actual video of a 2 year old.

 

nor did i say it would be easy but still worth a shot to put a p.o.s like him in prison.

thanks for a more detailed answer.

 

Good point, so tempory internet files does not alway prove he wanted to watch those, but he stored it on his hard drive, then he is history.

 

No problem, I am sure they are trying, but doing this for years if not longer is really going to cost the police department which only have limited resources. Maybe they should post on the hacker network and put up some reward money, if anyone can do it, those guys can.

 

How is it insanely expensive? Isn't it just a piece of software that runs millions of alpha-numeric combinations on a computer? It would seem to me it would be the modest cost of a big computer, a software license, and the electricity to run it. You could perhaps do a centralized bank where you feed each combination into the thousand or whatever machines you're hoping to crack at the same time, and get some economy of scale. Forgive my ignorance on the computing side.

 

temporary internet files are stored on your hard drive. The question is better phrased "did he intentionally download/view them?"

 

Doing it on one or two PCs will take you probably hundreds of years at current computing power, doing it on thousands or more computers is not easy and "Could" be expensive. Doing it on super computers is usually not an option for cases like this (not important enough).

 

I mean temorary internet files doesn't conclusively proof anything.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_force_attack#Unbreakable_codes