Man jailed over computer password refusal

[4me2]

Man jailed over computer password refusal



Oliver Drage was ordered to serve 16 weeks at a Young Offenders Institution on Monday



A teenager has been jailed for 16 weeks after he refused to give police the password to his computer.
Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation.
Police seized his computer but could not access material on it as it had a 50-character encryption password.
Drage was convicted of failing to disclose an encryption key in September. He was sentenced at Preston Crown Court on Monday.
Drage, was arrested when he was living in Freckleton, Lancashire, but later moved to Liverpool.
He was formally asked to disclose his password but failed to do so, which is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police said.


'Robust message'

Officers are still trying to crack the code on the computer to examine its contents.
Det Sgt Neil Fowler, of Lancashire police, said: "Drage was previously of good character so the immediate custodial sentence handed down by the judge in this case shows just how seriously the courts take this kind of offence.
"Computer systems are constantly advancing and the legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime.
"It sends a robust message out to those intent on trying to mask their online criminal activities that they will be taken before the courts with the ultimate sanction, as in this case, being a custodial sentence."



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

[flumperino]

There has to be more to the story, surely? Throwing somebody in jail for four months for not handing over a password seems insane!

Plus, couldn't the police have brute-forced the pass by now? The 14-year old l33t can do such things.

[Mule]

There has to be more to the story, surely? Throwing somebody in jail for four months for not handing over a password seems insane!

Plus, couldn't the police have brute-forced the pass by now? The 14-year old l33t can do such things.

I very much doubt you can brute force a 50 character password, the permutations at that level would be immense.

[matthewy2]

cudnt they just use erd commander or summat

[liveseytowers]

It sounds like he had some proper business type encryption on it. The one we use for our laptops at work is meant to be almost impossible to crack. It would be pointless otherwise.

[burner1]

I imagine it's some phrase or other if it's that long so he remembers it easily? If the encryption involved spaces as part of the code then I wonder if they tried

good luck trying to crack my password motherfucker

[tempralflux]

In truecrypt you can use part of a .jpg to encrypt your files or use a encrypted volume within a encrypted volume that not visble

[flumperino]

Whether they break the code or not, there must be some pretty heinous shit on his hard drive for him to sit through a trial and accept a 4-month jail sentence in order to keep it hidden.

[tempralflux]

Or just a stubborn fukcer maybe don`t what to giveup the source code to stuxnet lol

[TwoPlAnKs]

Plus, couldn't the police have brute-forced the pass by now? The 14-year old l33t can do such things.

50 ASCII characters would give 2582249880000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 possible passwords. 50 unicode characters would start with a 666 and have twice as many zeros. I'd like to see it brute forced.

What if you genuinely forgot the password? How would the police know you weren't just lying to stop them from reading your super secret megabytes?

[craig99]

Irrespective ..... hes still a fucken nonce!

[Mule]

Irrespective ..... hes still a fucken nonce!

Daily mail reader?

[Raptor]

you tell them that it was written down and that they took the piece of paper with all the other shit during the raid.

[Mystical_2K]

you tell them that it was written down and that they took the piece of paper with all the other shit during the raid.

yeah that would be my response too

[muttleymacclad]

I guess 4 months in a Young Offenders Institute is much more preferable than a long stretch inside for a Child abuse conviction, plus however many years on the sex offenders register.

mml

[jaguar982]

If he has got bad shit on it i hope they find a way in

jag

[Ginnerfreak]

They must have some more evidence in order to lock him up.. Surely your innocent until proven guilty of an offence..

Can you really be locked up for not giving the police your password..

He was formally asked to disclose his password but failed to do so, which is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police said.

I am shocked completely about this law. Do we now live in a police state.

Surely this is in direct breach of your 'rights against self incrimination'.

I agree that the police may have every right to access your PC etc in order to gather evidence, but I am shocked that you are legally obliged to provide them with the password..

[crashtestmac]

Ginner,

It is an offense, and it has been about for a while, as for the self incrimination stuff, he was given the option to not incriminate himself by providing the password.

I have been one some quite high level forensic courses and this is the sort of stuff that the police dread, you can get all the evidence from the ISP that you need to show the traffic and sites visited but you cannot then get into the machine so cannot provide the full evidence.

It must have been some nasty shit for him to have not handed over the password, it will be interesting to see what happens with this ongoing because 16 weeks for having a hard drive full of kiddy porn is a walk in the park..!

[Hodge20001]

You will find he is using something like PGP to encrypt the data as well as the 50 Char password, PGP is pretty much impossible to get around anyway, plus the fact of the password.... they haven't a chance in hell unless he gives them the password.

fact is he is a nonce, so not giving the his password means they haven't got any proof, they may have all the info from the ISP lvl but he can say someone had hacked his wireless/network.

as stated above, 14 months in a young offenders is MUCH better than a stint inside and years on a sex offenders list.

[DJ OD]

Isn't he being banging up under a law that was supposedly made to protect us from terrorists?

Admittedly the guy could well be a sick little perv and deserve being banged up, but without evidence who knows...

The info here is not so much fancy cryptology, more that another example of laws being used to suit the needs of the police under the guise of terrorism and "public safety".


DJ OD