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View Full Version : Refusing to decrypt data for investigators gets student 6 months in jail




aGameOfThrones
07-09-2014, 06:46 PM
Christopher Wilson is a 22-year-old computer science student with Asperger's syndrome. He's also facing six months in prison for refusing to hand over the encryption keys to police during the course of an investigation. Wilson first found himself on the wrong side of the long arm of the law in October of 2012. At the time, he was suspected of emailing threats to the vice chancellor of Newcastle University, where he was working towards a master's degree, in which he promised to shoot members of the school's staff. The messages were able to be traced to servers that were connected to Wilson, but the allegations could never be substantiated and the charges were eventually dropped. But not before police confiscated several pieces of computer equipment from his home.

Wilson's legal troubles continued. Although charges were dropped in the Newcastle case, he became a suspect in a second set of threats made against the Northumbria police. In particular, he was suspected of calling and warning of an impending cyber attack, of attempting to break into the Serious Organised Crime Agency's website and of encouraging people to deface a Facebook memorial page set up for a pair of officers shot in Manchester.

As part of the investigation, police wanted to look at encrypted data stored on Wilson's computer. But the password he gave them didn't work. In fact, he provided investigators with 50 passwords, none of which turned out to be correct. So police turned to the courts, which compelled him to provide the correct key to decrypt the data in the interest of national security. Since Wilson refused to comply, he was sentenced to six months in prison under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, or RIPA, the UK's wiretapping law. Of course, it would seem a stretch that such threats would fall under the guise of terrorism and national security, which the particular provisions of RIPA are meant to investigate.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/09/refusing-to-decrypt-data-6-months/

tod evans
07-09-2014, 07:00 PM
What's his commissary account number?

DamianTV
07-09-2014, 07:15 PM
Does this not qualify as "bearing witness against ones self"? IE, a violation of the 5th Amendment?

Root
07-09-2014, 07:59 PM
Does this not qualify as "bearing witness against ones self"? IE, a violation of the 5th Amendment?
Why follow the constitution now?

DamianTV
07-09-2014, 08:20 PM
Why follow the constitution now?

Oh, I had the Constitution once, but got rid of it with an over-the-counter Laxative...

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Invasion of Privacy knows no limits.

roho76
07-09-2014, 08:20 PM
...god damn piece of paper - George Bush (I'm paraphrasing)

acptulsa
07-09-2014, 09:07 PM
Does this not qualify as "bearing witness against ones self"? IE, a violation of the 5th Amendment?

I would think so. But last I heard, Great Britain had not ratified the Fifth Amendment.

ClydeCoulter
07-09-2014, 10:12 PM
..., in which he promised to shoot members of the school's staff.

Assume much?

Poor article is poor.

FindLiberty
07-10-2014, 09:56 AM
Too bad they can't just drop it. Sharks seem to go into a mad frenzy when there's movement and they sense a little blood in the water.

Sacrifice the goobermint's irs, fbi, cia and nsa (use the entire data center) computing power and refocus their full attention to cracking this one encryption code... Why, well what's more important? Do it today before it's too late after Utah shuts off he water needed to cool the computers and hydrate the employees... Grind at it for as long as it takes, please. Ask the Creature from Jekyll Island for help if project cash runs low!

(6 months? Hint, try entering his pet's first name before resorting to H2O-board assisted password recovery. 22 trips around the sun? IMO it's too late for him now, but kid (or his parents) probably needed a good spanking long before today.)