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back to article 'Sorry, I've forgotten my decryption password' is contempt of court, pal – US appeal judges

The US Third Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a lower court ruling of contempt against an ex-cop who claimed he couldn't remember the password to decrypt his computer's hard drives. In so doing, the appeals court in Philadelphia avoided addressing a lower court's rejection of the defendant's argument that being forced to …

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  1. JaitcH
    WTF?

    The Answer for the password should have been . . .

    it was written on a small piece of paper because the password was so long and comprised random numbers and letters. I don't know what happened to it when the Plod/Cops raided my house.

    Who can remember the passwords issued automatically? For example, Arstechnica issues 12-digit randomised passwords that would defy memorising other than by a person with an eidetic memory.

    1 0 Reply
  2. Jake Maverick

    In the UK it is also considered perfectly legal to gaol a man/ women indefinately if they refuse to help pigyobs 'gang rape' his own wife for example, by decrypting said file of him buttfucking hiw own wife, or somebody else's wife for that matter....slavery was also perfectly legal, as was the holocaust and the chipping of dogs and cats that lead to cancers and other medical problems....:-(

    0 1 Reply
  3. DrM

    Selling it

    I don’t think the guy sold it hard enough, “You f_cked up my computer! My password won’t work, what did you do!”

    2 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Morton's Fork

    The issue here is that they want to take the "easy" option which is for the guy to hand over the key(s).

    I've got several random .zip and other files on my machine(s), its impossible to tell what they are because I have genuinely forgotten the passwords. This was way back close to a decade ago, pretty sure I know whats in them (ie backup of microcontroller code from hobby) but without any way to unlock them they could be anything.

    Also sometimes found .rar files for device drivers etc and discovered after downloading them that they were password locked, again they could be anything.

    0 0 Reply
    1. gnasher729 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Morton's Fork

      What you have is a different situation. You have some random old files on your disk. And quite a few of them. So your claim that you have forgotten the password is quite reasonable. Forensics can check when these files were last opened. If I have an encrypted hard drive _attached to my computer_, then a claim that I forgot the password is much less believable. Since I don't throw away things often enough, there is a chance that there is an old hard drive somewhere in my garage that is encrypted and I don't know the password. That old hard drive would turn up when my garage is searched, it wouldn't be attached to my computer. It would be covered in dust. It would be years old. It's a different situation.

      Saying that you forgot a password isn't contempt of court. Saying that you forgot a password when it is quite clear that this is a lame excuse, that is contempt of court.

      1 1 Reply
  5. Conundrum1885

    In other news

    I actually need to check something in one of those old dusty .zip files, because it proves priority of an invention.

    Any ideas? Pretty sure that the passphrase was something to do with a film but which one?

    0 0 Reply

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