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Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by lutorm on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @12:42PM (#1839358)
But if you've written notes in your notebook that are comprehensible only to you, should you be compelled to explain to the authorities what they mean?
Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by oiuhjygtfghjnmk on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @01:02PM (#1839452)
That was one of the jokes with the original wording. To cover encrypted, as well as enciphered, text it said something like "any clear text that has a hidden meaning".

Which immediately made most of literature and theology illegal. You couldn't posses a poem or a bible unless you could explain to the police any hidden symbolism!

Pictures of the police kicking down doors and shouting "you're nicked - now explain what the poet really meant by a host of yellow daffodils"

Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by patio11 on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @01:05PM (#1839463)
This is talking about the Color of Bits, to quote a famous article on the subject of computer programmers discussing law about computers.

http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php

Computer programmers think, aha, I can apply an arbitrary algorithmic translation to input A and get output B, and applying the law to B would be absurd, so therefore applying the law to A is also absurd. What they fail to realize is that bits have color -- a type of metadata that law algorithms can see and operate on which your computer algorithms are ignorant of.

You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself. This is only true if you're Colorblind.

Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by mindslight on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @02:04PM (#1839726)
> You think that encrypted contents of a computer harddrive is a logically equivalent operation to writing things in a form only comprehensible to oneself.

This entirely depends on whether you view your computer as an extension of your personal consciousness or as being an external service that you're interacting with. I'd rather a society where computers act as individuals' agents, rather than people being at the mercy of the computers.

Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by ovi256 on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @02:06PM (#1839731)
This color is what normal people call intention.

Big file that is storing your n-th computed prime : innocuous.

Big file that is storing pirated movie, even if called "n-th prime" : not OK.