A judge in America has a woman who is suspected of fraud forced the hard drive in her laptop to decrypt it. A law stating that nobody could be forced to his own conviction to work with and would not go up.
The American Ramona Fricosu from the state of Colorado, is suspected of mortgage fraud, and has possible evidence on her laptop. The hard drive on this laptop is, however, encrypted with the PGP Desktop software from Symantec. Lawyer Phil Dubois argued before the court that Fricosu, the information does not need to decrypt because the fifth amendment to the U.s. constitution states that no one could be forced to be a witness against himself.
Judge Robert Blackburn ruled otherwise, however, and has Fricosu dedicated to the hard drive to decrypt for February 21. She does this not, then they are accused of contempt of court. According to Blackburn gives the All Writs Act of 1789, which is also used for telephone companies to force it to assist in surveillance, the power to Fricosu to force the hard drive to decrypt. That reports Cnet.
Lawyer Dubois wants to in the appeal and says that his client may not be able to get the data to decrypt, even though it is still unknown why. If that is the case, then the court may Fricosu not condemn for the neglect of something that they are not able to do so, according to Dubois.
If the key or divulge, is still the question of whether all the encrypted data become accessible. The application of encryption in the last few years has become easier. Various tools make it possible to transfer files or partitions in order to hide using very strong encryption keys, including aes, serpent and twofish. In addition, within encrypted partitions, in some cases, new encrypted partitions are created. Because of this, a suspect is a key disclosure that gives access to the first encrypted partition, but where the information inside the encryption container still remains invisible.
This is not the first time that on this subject the judgment is made. A federal judge ruled that the right to remain silent not be used when it comes to passwords. Also there are contradictory statements. In 2012, ruled a judge in Michigan that a suspect of kinderpornobezit his laptop does not need to decrypt, because the fifth amendment that is not allowed. A year earlier, ruled a judge in Vermont in a similar case just the opposite.
In England in 2007, a law was passed which defendants can force the data on their computers to decrypt it. They do not, then they can be put in jail. Since the introduction of that law are already some people have been sentenced because they refused to have their data decrypted.