How the UK's online safety bill threatens Matrix

Re:How the UK's online safety bill threatens Matrix by gambiting on Friday May 21, 2021 @07:33AM (#27232726)

Absolutely, but that loops back all the way back to my original question - has anyone ever been successfully been prosecuted for actually forgetting their password. Or at least saying "look, my passwords are auto generated and 32 characters long, I think the 5th and 8th characters were a # but I'm not sure". What then? You're not refusing to provide the password, you are just not exactly sure what it was, and if you look into my password manager you can see all my passwords are at least 32 characters long so I'm not making it up.

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Re:How the UK's online safety bill threatens Matrix by DanBC on Friday May 21, 2021 @08:05AM (#27232973)

I don't think anyone has been prosecuted. I'm not arguing with your point - this stuff is messy. It's not clear cut. There's a combination of how the law is written, how courts have interpreted that in the past, whether that would stand up to the supreme court or the EU courts, and what you can persuade the jury and judges to believe.

If you're providing part of your password you run the risk that

i) you'll be convicted of the S53 RIPA offence (potentially 2 years for most stuff, potentially 5 years for child sexual exploitation or terrorism)

and

ii) they'll decrypt it somehow and you'll also be convicted of the original offences.

Criminals are well aware of the trade-offs of the English courts. Do you plead guilty at the earliest opportunity (and get a reduction in sentence as a result) or do you wait until the day of the trial (because many trials collapse before they get to court).

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