How Long to Crack an 'Encrypted' HD? 733
brainburger asks: "In the UK, Tony Blair has recently lost a parliametary vote to allow the police to hold terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial. One of the justifications the police gave for the extension from 14 days to 90 days was that they need the extra 76 days to decrypt the computer hard-drives of suspects. This has been seen by some as the only compelling reason to allow 90 days. The time-limit has been extended to 28 days instead, but Tony Blair insists 90 days is required. Are there really any encryption systems that cannot be cracked in 28 days, but which can be cracked in 90? Aside from the not-much-discussed issue that the police can no longer interrogate a suspect after they are charged, I suspect the police meant unencrypted machines. What do you think?"
Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they insane?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Retired senior judge Gerald Butler states: "The mere fact a threat is "completely different" is, of itself, no justification for an extension in the detention laws. But it is true we face a new and terrifying threat in this country."
Not politically motivated?!
What on earth are these people talking about? Good gried, "GET OUT THE MIDDLE EAST, WEST!" sounds _very_ political to me! "STOP MESSING IN OUR AFFAIRS", sounds political to me!
These attacks are completely and totally politically motivated.
The militants in the Middle East, right or wrong, is ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, and TOTALLY in the middle of a political struggle with the West.
What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably, but since encrypted hard drives usually involve a passphrase being converted into a key of suitable length by one-way hash algorithms, why not crack the passphrase instead of the actual key? Even with 256-bit AES (or something like it), a weak passphrase-based key is probably one of the easier ways to go after the data. Of course, if the suspect carries their completely random key around on a USB drive of some sort, that's a different matter.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now you can say that it's important that they keep their own culture, but when that culture promotes the beating and repression of women, the removing of educational opportunities for all children (boy and girl), and the constant denigration and denunciation of "Western culture" as "whorish", then you begin to wonder what made those good folks decide to migrate in the first place.
So yes, it is a political struggle, in some sense. The Muslims are demanding a political change in Europe from Western-style democracy to Sharia Law. They want the benefits of Western civilization without becoming involved in it. It is a culture war, not a political war. It has very little to do with the Middle East, but rather the expansion of Islam and Wahabi law across the whole of Europe.
I don't think you'll find any reasonable person saying to kick them back to Africa and the Mideast. But you will find that there is a strong resentment among reasonable people towards these freeloaders and complainers who have infiltrated the country and are suddenly trying to turn it into something that it has never been. Concessions should not be forthcoming only from the existing populace. The immigrants should also be prepared to adopt some cultural changes if they wish to migrate.
Re:My take on the subject (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:4, Insightful)
> and the President signs an executive order that allows for indefinite detainment of suspects.
It's a sad day when executive orders trump the constitution.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not politically motivated?!
The politician that acknowledges that terrorists are politically motivated would be accepting responsibility for provoking violent retaliation. Much better for their careers if terrorists are portrayed as driven by some kind of insane freedom-hating bloodlust. This way they're more like earthquakes, and who can stop earthquakes? No one.
Re:Before you answer (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the extended time frame is due to time delay in getting _started_ on the decryption. I assume the authorities are as backed up with work as any other company in the world. There is more that goes into the time-frame than _just_ the decryption (read:Analysis).
Re:Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could mod you up. Very true. This is something I've thought about. Let's say I'm using GPG or something like that. If the Feds come after my files and I've got my secret key lying around on my computer, or even somewhere easy to find, I think it'd be much easier just to crack the passphrase -- because really, there are common things a lot of people do for passwords. Replacing letters by numbers, adding #, !, @, alternating upper-lower case, etc. In the end, for most people, the password is something that is easy to remember, because if it's not, you're either going to have to have a great memory, or write it down somewhere. With this in mind, wouldn't cracking the passphrase be feasible in a smaller amount of time than if it were just brute forced? I honestly don't know -- I'm largely ignorant in that area, but it intrigues me nonetheless.
(I am aware, for the record, that brute forcing a password of any real length... e.g. even 6 or 7 chars long... requires an extraordinary amount of combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols... but if we can group those combinations into smaller units, don't we reduce the number?)
Mike.
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
But really, the problem is that the police don't like to release their suspects before they're sure they're not guilty of something. Even if the drives couldn't be copied without decrypting them first, the police could just take the hardware and release it when they're ready, but release the suspect quickly. But they don't want to do that -- he could be a terrorist! (or he could be totally innocent, but of course police don't make that sort of mistake.)
Though personally I think the 90 days thing is just a crock. It's also obviously just those pesky civil rights that are keeping law enforcement from turning this world into a paradise without crime, terrorism or software piracy overnight -- or at least that's sometimes how they seem to act.
Re:Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, that might almost work...
Rubber Hose attack.... (Score:2, Insightful)
What's that I hear you say? You can't do that in a free country? Holding a person for 90 days without charging him with anything is a new and interesting definition of the word "free".
"Freedom. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"
Ever wonder why Orwell set 1984 in GB? Now you know.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:1, Insightful)
That would be funny, if it wern't true.
We are talking about Muslims who blow up other Muslims because they "arn't Muslim (and repressive) enough" (as if they don't already have their work cut out with their holy crusade against all the Chirstians, Jews, Pagans and Heathens in the world).
Political, social and religious freedom is pretty low on their "What I want from Santa" list.
Re:Why MOD down? (Score:1, Insightful)
Please read and stop pretending you have an informed opinion concerning these matters. Preferably in reverse order.
The longer the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I'm outright against this and any other attempt to make a police state. If you lock a guy up for 3 months you've pretty much taken his job away from him, maybe his house (if renting) and rumours spread fast, so good luck getting hired againa as a "possible terrorist". The reason the vote was against it is because it would ruin people's lives if this were to be brought upon them.
With enough time and money... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily. If you REALLY wanted to hide something on your hard drive, it'd be cakewalk for anyone really determined. Just get a 256 bit encryption system put on there (nearly impossible to 'brute force' with simple computing power due to the sheer number of possibilities).
On top of that you can hide messages in thousands of different possible files on the computer. It could be anywhere; a driver, a PC save game file, the user name and password for someone MMO account spelt backwards, it could be in plain sight on the desktop except its a code-word phrase that only the (presumably) terrorist knows. And thats on top of the encryption so the code breaking geeks can't even being working on this until the computers are done. Hiding data on a computer these days is a joke for anyone willing to spend the time and effort.
"Brute forcing" encryptions is a thing of the past. Contrary to popular belief, hardware has not necessarily kept up with software, as many high-end computer graphics designers will attest to. (Imagine today's top of the line computers trying to real-time render the orc's attack on Helm's Deep with all the fancy graphics, special AI and fancy camera work all going on at the same time.)
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need time to crack the hard drive YOU FUCKING TAKE THE HARD DRIVE!. Why do you need to hold the person for 90 days when you can simply take his hard drive and hold it for as long as you want. Look at the Scott Peterson case. They came and took his car, and pretty much emptied his house and held it for over a year while he was awaiting trial. Which brings up another point. YOU CAN HOLD PEOPLE FOR A VERY LONG TIME IF YOU SIMPLY CHARGE THEM WITH A CRIME.
See how easy that is. Arrest the guy, charge him with conspiracy to commit crimes, deny bail, get a warrant, hold him in jail, take all his stuff and take your time combing through it.
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes! All the things the Christian Fundamentalists also want to ban.
When encryption is outlawed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just fishing for the amusing title, but in the (pretty large number of) posts I've looked at so far, no one has made the obvious observation that if the "terrorists" are actually concerned about being held some number of days, then they can just increase the level of encryption they use to make sure that it will take longer than that to decrypt their drives. There is no upper limit on the amount of encryption you use. For the police to claim that they need any fixed number of days is totally bogus, and the British police are just making excuses because they want to hold suspects for longer time periods. Heck, if having a HDD is the excuse for being held longer, then all the smart criminals will simply get rid of their computers. Of course that's on the theory that the amount of time the police are holding them has anything to do with whatever criminal action they might be planning.
In conclusion, I would guess that the stupid TV show called "24" must also be shown in Great Britain.
Real life is not like that. Before arresting someone, the police are supposed to already have some concrete and substantive basis for suspecting the person has committed a crime, or even stronger evidence that the person is really in the process of planning to commit a crime. The basis that "We think we'll find something AFTER we decrypt the HDD" is totally bogus. The reality here is they just want to quietly lean on the suspects for a longer time, and saying they need that much time because of HDD encryption is just a cheap--and stupid--excuse.
Having said that, I'm surprised the politicians weren't stupid enough to go along with the gag. That already puts them ahead of most American politicians. Can you try to imagine explaining HDD encryption to Dubya?
Re:Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:3, Insightful)
So now it's "Guilty unless proven innocent?" If they don't have the evidence to charge you, you shouldn't be held in jail. Period. A major pillar of the legal system is that you can't assume someone is guilty unless you actually have the evidence to back it up. Tearing down rights left and right to stop terrorism accomplishes exactly what the terrorists want.
Computer power (Score:5, Insightful)
Guessing a passphrase is believable, though. That might take large-but-feasible computer resources. English text has only one point something bits of entropy per character on the usual estimate. Who has a sixty-character passphrase?
Pardon the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if he knows you'll find something on his hard drive once you decrypt it, he may decide to disappear during the 90 days it takes you to find it, whereas if you can keep in custody until you finish he wont have that opportunity?
Re:This sounds like a bogus excuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, not necessarily.
From the wiki:
Failing to provide the key is a criminal offence, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail. The accused must prove that they do not have the key, claiming to have mislaid or forgotten it might not be accepted as a defence. Both the innocent and the guilty would be caught in that condition, the guilty because they would rather serve two years than ten or more. Additionally those under investigation may not tell anyone except their attorney they are being investigated, under threat of five years imprisonment. This last is the newly coined offense of "tipping off".
Re:Pardon the obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
This time was referring to habeas corpus.
Basically when Tony Blair came to power it was 7 days. He raised it to 14, now 28 but he still wants 90 days.
This is the period of time the police are legally allowed to hold you with no evidence whatsoever that you've done anything wrong, just because they suspect you might have. It's a period of time where the police can hold you while look for evidence. Once they find the smallest amount of evidence they can then charge you and then can keep looking for evidence.
This bill's meant to allow the police to break any encryption so that they would now be able to pick people up they suspect of terrorism and detain them until they've broken every encrypted file on their computer on the off chance that they'll find evidence that way when they can't find any other evidence whatsoever.
3 entire wasted months of your life dragged away from your job (which probably won't be there when you return) and your family while they break your PGP encrypted emails to your girlfriend on the off chance the two of you are discussing how to blow up parliament.
As an example: Check this story out [guardian.co.uk]. This journalist hadn't actually done anything, and they released him after a day. They did during that time confiscate his computer equipment.
If this had been raised to 90 days it's entirely possible he'd have been held for 90 days while they decrypted anything they found on his hard drives.
After the 90 days are up they would still have released him. And they would not even have to explain why he'd been locked up, because he'd never been charged.
The bill has too major flaws.
1) There's nothing really to stop the power being abused by police who don't like the look of someone or have a grudge against them, which is exactly what it is designed to prevent. You do require the judges permission keep them for that long, but it's not too hard to create a case of why you suspect someone.
2) This odd 90 days which the Police told Tony Blair that they can break any encryption in. They can't - it's impossible!
- There'll be multiple encrypted files, particularly if they are encrypting their communications (guilty or not guilty). Each one would need 90 days.
- They'll not know the encryption algorithm in all cases, so would need to try every one. Each one would need 90 days.
- There are HUNDREDS of encryption algorithms that use such large keys that you can't realistically expect to crack the password in 90 years, let alone 90 days. There are a few around that even with all the supercomputers in the world working it won't have tried every key before the universe ends. And it's still possible to take one and write your own with an even longer key. (The details of which would be secret so they couldn't crack it in the first place anyway).
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you will find plenty of reasonable people advocating the position that multiculturalism does not work, leads to conflict, and in the case of N. Africans leads to a good deal of crime as well.
I can fully understand Arabs & Muslims not wanting us in their countries, just as easily as I can understand large number in the US not wanting the invasion of Mexicans & Haitians we have, or people in France not wanting the invasion of Africans they have.
After people get done shouting "racist", "xenophobe", "blah blah blah"
It isn't a problem if the people coming over are prepared to assimilate into that culture, speak a common language, share basic cultural values. But when you get large numbers that do not share those values, will not assimilate, will not speak a common language - you end up effectively with two disparate peoples trying to share a single state. If it goes on long enough, you usually see two state solutions offered, and its rarely a peaceful transition to that point.
Given history, I find nothing unreasonable in the arguement that France and French people may be unwilling to continue the current course: to abandon their cities endlessly and watch them turn into the equivalent of Detroit, and to face a civil war down the road which likely splits the state.
I think the government lacks the backbone to bring real solutions to this problem to the table and will return to appeasement rather quickly, but it is the real issue and not the immediate economic issues. Their only way out of this may well be a very radically different immigration policy, and deporting those who are unwilling & unable to assimilate and become productive members of the society and culture they have.
The cost for multicultural experiements which don't pan out is quite high indeed.
Encryption key? What encryption key? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I lost the thumbdrive about a week ago on the way home from work.
Sorry.
Re:I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you're not being sarcastic, you might be shocked to read about Jose Padilla
You may be shocked to hear that, sometimes, Bush's government (well every government, really) does things that it knows are illegal.
While we're talking about HDs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My take on the subject (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, my good friend, let's not delude ourselves.
The military doesn't make the "guilty" and "innocent" distinction.
The military distinguishes between people by what side of their weapons they're on.
The persons held at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are nothing more than enemy combatants who don't currently have the means to inflict harm upon the United States and its Allies. It is the US Government's contention that these people do have the desire and the determination to inflict harm on the United States and its Allies and would do so were they in possession of liberty of movement and adequate instruments of war. It is therefore the unofficial policy to "break" these people so that they will either suffer death and/or no longer be determined to inflict harm upon the United States and its Allies.
This way of thinking, while reminiscent of methods used by many of History's most reviled tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao, is nevertheless effective at reducing the capabilities of an ideologically motivated enemy.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why the business of war is ghastly. We are a fierce and warlike people, and we are the best in the world at it. All strong nations have at one time or another demonstrated their willingness to inflict unimaginable suffering on defenseless human beings. The poor sools at Gitmo are simply casualties of war.
That it is in our nature as a people to seek tranquility, harmony, and peaceful relations with one another is simply the demonstration that we do not engage in war for the pleasure of it, but rather out of necessity to protect the lives and opportunities of those that are dear to us. Yet we do not think that war is not necessary; to the contrary, it is because we are so dedicated to freedom, equality, and the pursuit of happiness that we are willing to fight those who would enslave us.
[/rant]
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Insightful)
So why? Is it because he is a muslim? Because the police have a funny feeling? Because they are dark skinned on a sunny day?
If you have any evidence at all you can charge him and bag him. Judges don't really stand in the way of muslims going to jail in the US do they?
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, even better than that: Just because they suspect you maybe will.
And this a country which is a part of a coalition trying to "bring democracy" to others.
--paulj
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:1, Insightful)
I dunno about you, but I think flushing a Quran really doesn't make America's allies like Qatar, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Jordan or Indonesia support us any.
Also, the US did release hundreds of people from Gitmo, after depriving them of the right to due process, and torturing a few of them. Go read what happened to Jamal Al-Harith. (I think his name was)
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Sucks to have it happen to you, but how should arrests based on descriptions work otherwise? "Hey, you look like the description of the burgler/mugger/ect. We will send you a letter in a few days to arrest you!"?
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:2, Insightful)
In a perfect world, nobody dies. In our world, people die, some horribly, some slowly and horribly. The key is to have as few people die horribly as possible.
When you say gitmo, I assume you're referring to the Detention Program, not the base itself.
I don't really care what happened to a few hundred people, tortured or otherwise. More than 5 million people died in France between 1940 and 1945. Both my grandfathers fought in the war. One spent 2 years in a german labor camp. I'm callous. My mother was born in 1943, near Paris, France. Two SS officers were quartered upstairs. They made sure my mother had enough calcium in her diet.
Not that I don't feel an emotional bond with them at the individual level. I wish I could go "make things right" with each one. I wish I could invite them in, offer them tea and biscuits, and talk of their dreams for the future, of their youth, of the women they have loved and either have married or hope to; of their children, brothers, and sisters.
The world is the strangest place, and pain is everywhere; and joy too.
Re:Before you answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, except if they can arrest you and try you and convict you for this, they will have longer than the 90 days to try and decrypt your data, and then convict you for the first offence.
Gives an easy way out for the child porn rings: two years for not revealing keys versus God knows how much for dealing in child porn.
This is about suspected terrorists. It has nothing to do with child porn.
Re:Before you answer (Score:2, Insightful)
An interesting opinion. Just how, pray-tell, are the police supposed to request additional resources, powers, or whatever they feel they need without lobbying the legislative body in charge of passing laws and divvying up tax revenues in their jurisdiction? It's the fact that they have to go through duly elected representatives for such things that prevents, or at least impedes, the police from taking over government and writing thier own laws.
Re:Before you answer (Score:2, Insightful)
It's The Economy Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the riots in France are not motivated on religious grounds. The riots are as a result of huge economic disadvantage, exploitation and unemployment in those communities which are rioting. This has come about because of racism and bigotry in France, not because of religion. The majority of the rioters are not even religious.
The Muslims are not rioting. The poor are rioting. Quite a lot of people will try and distract you from this fact, especially in France, where the poor rioting has a long and well documented history of toppling governments.
Re:Before you answer (Score:1, Insightful)
A good terrorist never encrypts (Score:3, Insightful)
The notion that terrorists stroll around with all their details encrypted on a laptop PC is completely false anyway. A good terrorist cell would have been trained ruthlessly to avoid such an obvious compromise and organized so that it had no information to retain or pass on anway. What they need to know would be a few fleeting instructions on a job by job basis. The most successful terrorist outfit of modern times, the Irish Republic Army, did not become viciously successful by using computers, FFS. Computers weren't even around for most of its active history. And such evidence as there is suggests that many terrorist operations have been coordinated on the basis of using throw-away mobile phones on a one-off basis.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, I would like to see these examples of civilisations ruined by multi-culturalism. In the past most countries insisted on any immigrants adopting their own rules, for example Europe in the middle ages with their pogroms against Jews, medieval Spain under the second wave of Moors then fundamentalist Catholics, Rome where all non-Romans were not citizens, medieval England where Catholics were forced to pray in Anglican churches under threat of fines or execution, the Americas where non-Christians were forced to convert under pain of death by numerous waves of settlers, the US where slaves were forced into Christianity etc, etc. In fact the only examples of where multi-culturalism has been evident and allowed to flourish it has worked - under the first wave of Moors in Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims lived and worked together, in London (and often in other trading centres) where Jews and Christians worked together setting up business and trading empires, in Hong Kong where Europeans and Chinese worked together to build global businesses, in New York where strict Jews live with Christians, Asians, Muslims and Mexicans and California where people of European and Asian decent mix to create a scientific and artistic hot house.
You are simply trying to excuse petty racism.
xenophobia is insightful now?? (Score:3, Insightful)
What data? You aren't offering any data; you're just spewing xenophobic garbage. You say historically multicultural societies don't work - what is your definition of such societies? What is the United States? If it is being "invaded" by Mexicans and Hatians, who is being invaded? Native Americans? The descendants of French and British immigrants from the 1600s? The descendants of Irish and Eastern European immigrants of the 1900s? The descendants of "Californios" of the 1800s? The US has its problems no doubt, but I'll take the cultural diversity here over a chauvinistic monoculture any day of the week, even a snooty one with a rich artistic and literary tradition like France.
The other thing wrong with what you're saying is that there is no turning back -- for better or worse, the European countries are not monocultures any more, and they have not been for at least a half century now. Short of a full-scale Fascist revival, how do you expect these countries to return to monoculture? One of the inevitable consequences of increasing globalization of the economy is increased cultural interaction, both in the western countries and in the "third world." Folks need to stop fantasizing about purifying their cultures and deal with the realities. We need to find a way to live together, period.
Maybe it's not about encryption at all (Score:2, Insightful)
My take is that breaking (brainwashing, if you will) someone is a lot easier in 90 days than in 14, especially if you want to avoid any techniques that look too much like torture. Some of us might be able to resist two weeks of all-night questioning, sleep deprivation, and general abuse - but not three months. By then you wouldn't remember who you were, or which way was up. You could even be temporarily exported to Algeria, Egypt, Syria, or some other country that specializes in robust interrogation, and brought back (what was left of you) in time to be charged.
Re:Before you answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No more AES (Score:3, Insightful)
One point about encryption is that you should encrypt everything. Otherwise you are saying to any evesdropper "A is important, B is trivial".
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
That has NOTHING to do with anything. No "terrorist" has said "all white folk please leave". They want us to stop messing around in their POLICAL AFFAIRS. They want us to stop toppling democracies and replacing them with puppet governments, who we then arm and support as they carry out their war crimes. In Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other states (not just in the middle east), we have backed the "bad guy" whenever it is deemed to be in our interests.
Anytime that some one tries to tell you that they "hate freedom" or they "hate our religion" is a lying manipulative piece of shit. Got get a history book please an learn why people fly planes into buildings and blow themselves up. You might then start questioning the policies of your own government which where the DIRECT cause of these attacks.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's not how you end up at all - that's just how things start out.
Once people live side by side for long enough the groups intermingle sufficently and the groups become unified until they are a singular people.
The only significant hurdle to integration appears to be, and I mention it only because it's strictly relevent, large organised religions (Pagan religions tending either to be assimilated or to fade out). Fortunately, it's also true that the process of intergration can eased by careful government management of the populace (and indeed can benifit from co-operation from promient religious leaders).
Governments allowing taxpayer subsidized immigrant ghettos to form unforunately has not helped, and is ultimately counter productive (as has been shown through riots in France and to a lesser extent Britain), serving only to breed division and resentment on both sides.
This is Off Topic and History 101 but take a look at 13th Century Europe [euratlas.com] and compare it with a map of modern Europe [euratlas.com] and count the number of different countries in each (as a starter you'll note that mainland Britian alone was still 3 entirely seperate countries).
Europe has certainly had it's ups and downs, with large empires, such as the Roman, German, Austrian and Russian consolidating large regions - predominantly by force (which occationaly, if rarely, works as a long term solution) - for a limited period of time.
Never the less, the overall trend has clearly towards unity and consolidation. This can been seen not just through topology, but also by looking at the culture and the langue of the people in those regions. This is - and must be, if it is to be successful - a gradual process, as can be seen by the general level of enthusiasim of Europeans for unity in Europe, but in the equal desire of most of the inhabitants not to move things along too fast. As slow a process as it is (taking many generations, thus being inperceptible to each of us individually) further integreation is inevitable across the globe as a whole.
Obviously this isn't a phenomenon unique to Europe, as well as happening in Asia (most spectacularly in China) it applies also to what is now known as the United States Of America.
Short Answer: No (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you cannot decrypt a hard disk in 90 days (assuming the use of strong encryption). If you find you're using Rijndael or Serepent, you're good. However, in the period of 90 days, you're more likely to experience a psychological break due to duress (like torture). Most people could handle 14 days, but not 90. Once you break, you'll be more than happy to hand over your keys.
To clarify the difference of 14 and 90 days in detainment, consider the following. Those detaining have had a couple periods on which to deprive the detainee of food and water to the point of going critical without actually killing you. Once someone become dependent on their captors for essentials like food and water, they become loyal. They have also had the opportunity to deprive the person of sleep for a solid 12 or more days, which can drive most people close to the point of insanity. Also, the textbook technique for "breaking" someone where captors inflict physical pain then "rescue" the person from it requires several iterations. 14 days just simply is not enough to accomplish these things. 90 would suffice.
And let me also point out that this is how the United States government operates these days. It would be reasonable to assume some of our closest allies are engaged in similar activities with "terror suspects".
Why keep it private? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because that's where you keep all the digital photos you took of your wife naked as well as mpegs of your bedroom fun?
Because you have $1,000,000,000 worth of illegal MP3s on here, and it's cheaper to just spend the 90 days in jail then get caught by the RIAA.
Because you're a stubborn jackass and don't think you should need to give away your privacy.
True! One simple method is to use a randomly generated key file, store a few backups where no one will find them, and keep the original on you at all times. (mini-CD) If the cops are on your tail, just break the copy you have with you.
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Insightful)