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A comment on Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password. Parent comment

Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by ColinDabritz on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @06:18PM (#1840706)
Wow, that's an interesting point of view (as enshrined in law). For example, I own some DVDs or say Blu-Ray discs. Shouldn't the company provide me the key to decrypt them in case the police want to decrypt them? I suspect those companies wouldn't appreciate that.

Also, since encrypted data, if done properly is very hard to distinguish between random noise, and people often use writes with random noise as a secure erasure technique, it could also be that you erased that data? That is a thorny issue as well.

Is "I erased the data on that drive securely using random bits" a valid defense?

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Re:Teenager jailed for refusing to hand over computer password by sp4rki on Wednesday October 27, 2010 @11:31PM (#1841593)
It is a valid defense if you deleted the data before the investigation took place. If you did so with the intent of destroying evidence (of course, after the investigation starts) your obstructing justice which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in the U S of A.
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