Hacker News Reader

Comment by nodata | Hacker News Reader

I think this was discussed here the other day (can't find the link, sorry). The thinking went something like this: a passphrase is equivalent to a combination wall safe and not to a lock with key: one requires a physical thing to open it, the other requires something within your head. The something within your head is equivalent to testimony.

View on HN

The thing is, the court can compel you to open the safe. You don't have to reveal the combination but you do have to open it (or face contempt charges).

This is pretty much the same thing they are demanding from her - we don't want your password, we want access to your hard drive.

However, in the case of a safe there exist other reasonable methods to access its content such as a safe cracker or breaking open the door.

As I stated in my comment above, in the case of properly encrypted data where exactly one person possesses the key this is not the same.

Technically it's not the same thing. Whether or not it is legally different is an entirely different matter - one that has not yet been resolved.

If the court decides that encryption is like a safe then, regardless of how impossible it is to open the safe without a key, the court can coerce you into decrypting your HD.

However, if the court decides that encryption is like a secret language that only you can translate (a more accurate representation of encryption, in my opinion) then they will likely rule that they cannot coerce you into decrypting the data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com