Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years

[Sevyvia]

"Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content"

Alright, so, the drive is encrypted and you don't know the content. You can't decrypt it yourself, or this case would be solved. So... file hashes of ENCRYPTED, THEREFORE SCRAMBLED files match child abuse content? Encryption (at least any modern, halfway decently made encryption, in case he made it himself) randomises the encrypted content, therefore you can draw exactly no conclusions from whatever the hash of that random string of characters comes out to.

[LiiLoSNK]

In a fascist country it would not be kind to anyone.

Day 1:

"Alright all you other convicts need to get out of showers. It's my turn and I place my privacy above all. No peeking!"

[Zeta333]

In a fascist country it would not be kind to anyone.

You have no idea what fascism is.

[Krastyn]

Then why wouldn't he just say that his sister put the, presumably fucked up pictures, on the external? Also he doesn't mention his sister being responsible in any of the appeals.

All I'm saying is that a fingerprint and a witness is enough to make a conviction.

They have a solid case, but can get him more time for having actual possession of the pictures. If he was trading, making his own, or even worse, then it's no wonder he doesn't want to open that shit up. They want to get what they think they can from this sick bastard.

they don't have his fingerprints though. They have a crime scene that potentially multiple people had access to. A witness may not be credible. I also haven't seen anything regarding the timeline of when she saw it, if she reported it, etc. He may be guilty. He may be protecting someone else. All that is known right now is from the start he plead the 5th. Maybe he has child porn. Maybe he has videos of him having sex with donkeys. What it comes down to though is whether the court should be able to force you to provide passwords. While they ruled yes currently, it has also been shot down in other cases.

[LiiLoSNK]

"Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content"

Alright, so, the drive is encrypted and you don't know the content. You can't decrypt it yourself, or this case would be solved. So... file hashes of ENCRYPTED, THEREFORE SCRAMBLED files match child abuse content? Encryption (at least any modern, halfway decently made encryption, in case he made it himself) randomises the encrypted content, therefore you can draw exactly no conclusions from whatever the hash of that random string of characters comes out to.

LOL bro you don't plug an external drive into your router and start surfing the web on it.

You download on a thing called a computer (where they found the hashes of unencrypted files) and then he moved the files to the external.

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they don't have his fingerprints though. They have a crime scene that potentially multiple people had access to. A witness may not be credible. I also haven't seen anything regarding the timeline of when she saw it, if she reported it, etc. He may be guilty. He may be protecting someone else. All that is known right now is from the start he plead the 5th. Maybe he has child porn. Maybe he has videos of him having sex with donkeys. What it comes down to though is whether the court should be able to force you to provide passwords. While they ruled yes currently, it has also been shot down in other cases.

he also had pictures on his phone of his niece in only underwear with mainly crotch shots.

idk man I guess he could say his neighbor broke in and did all that and changed the password on his external and that all of this legit evidence means nothing. it's impossible to argue with people who argue in such a manner.

[Masark]

Yeah, hash files don't work that way.

You don't seem to know how they work. You can't calculate the hash of file from an encrypted version of that file, even assuming the encryption is on a file level rather than disk level, where you can't make sense of any individual files.

[LiiLoSNK]

You don't seem to know how they work. You can't calculate the hash of file from an encrypted version of that file, even assuming the encryption is on a file level rather than disk level, where you can't make sense of any individual files.

unencrypted versions of the file can have their hashes stored on his mac pro?

[Krastyn]

You download on a thing called a computer (where they found the hashes of unencrypted files) and then he moved the files to the external.

So there is a record of the hashes being moved to the external drive?

idk man I guess he could say his neighbor broke in and did all that and changed the password on his external and that all of this legit evidence means nothing. it's impossible to argue with people who argue in such a manner.

Yes, it is so much easier to just convict someone because the handful of facts you think you know are true. Pretty much everything about the case is hearsay right now since the case is sealed. So keep listing off that "legit" evidence. If they had stacks of legit evidence there would be more than enough to put him away for a long time without the external drives.

[Sevyvia]

LOL bro you don't plug an external drive into your router and start surfing the web on it.

You download on a thing called a computer (where they found the hashes of unencrypted files) and then he moved the files to the external.

Heh. I mean, I just presented indirect evidence that I have at least some small level of knowledge about this, so I assume this is why you're speaking to me as if I was a child in an effort to make me angry, which honestly only indicates that your own argument, or knowledge, is sketchy. If it wasn't, you would not need to rely on invective.

Still, people certainly are stupid enough in general to encrypt their files once moved but not sufficiently scrub the drive the files were downloaded to. In which case, the court have their evidence, so why is he still in prison over nothing? In other words, what are you talking about?

[Masark]

You download on a thing called a computer (where they found the hashes of unencrypted files)

Unless he's using some kind of deduplication system or an unusual file system (and even that requires certain assumptions about the files), there's no reason those hashes would actually exist.

[LiiLoSNK]

So there is a record of the hashes being moved to the external drive?



Yes, it is so much easier to just convict someone because the handful of facts you think you know are true. Pretty much everything about the case is hearsay right now since the case is sealed. So keep listing off that "legit" evidence. If they had stacks of legit evidence there would be more than enough to put him away for a long time without the external drives.

brb robbing a bank. i don't have to worry about wearing gloves or eye witnesses because I have a lawyer so good that he can get obvious pedophiles off the hook.

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Heh. I mean, I just presented indirect evidence that I have at least some small level of knowledge about this, so I assume this is why you're speaking to me as if I was a child in an effort to make me angry, which honestly only indicates that your own argument, or knowledge, is sketchy. If it wasn't, you would not need to rely on invective.

Still, people certainly are stupid enough in general to encrypt their files once moved but not sufficiently scrub the drive the files were downloaded to. In which case, the court have their evidence, so why is he still in prison over nothing? In other words, what are you talking about?

You know what's also stupid? showing off your child porn stash to your sister, not to mention having it in the first place.

[Krastyn]

brb robbing a bank. i don't have to worry about wearing gloves or eye witnesses because I have a lawyer so good that he can get obvious pedophiles off the hook.

You can quite easily rob a bank without gloves. And based on the number of robberies that occur every year, many people don't care about witnesses either. But that's all beside the fact. You're going off on tangents since you can't seem to actually argue points.

In order prove POSSESSION, one has to actually you know, possess something. Having a hash file shows something was once there, but if it's gone, you don't really have it now, do you?

[Masark]

unencrypted versions of the file can have their hashes stored on his mac pro?

Hashes of the unencrypted versions of the file could be stored on the Mac's hard drive.

Except that there's no reason for those hashes to have been created or stored in normal operation. HFS+ (the usual OSX file system) doesn't do any kind of file integrity checking that would use a hash.

The only reason I can think of for said hashes to exist is some kind of deduplication software and I've never heard of anyone doing that on a personal computer. That's the providence of major servers.

[LiiLoSNK]

Unless he's using some kind of deduplication system or an unusual file system (and even that requires certain assumptions about the files), there's no reason those hashes would actually exist.

i don't know how the guy liked to store his files or what random program he was running that might have done it. i'm reading from the actual court documents, where as you and sevy are reading from the rando-news website from the OP and it looks like they've already posted an apology for their mistake in saying that the hash files came from the encrypted drive.

the court documents said they came from the computer.

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You can quite easily rob a bank without gloves. And based on the number of robberies that occur every year, many people don't care about witnesses either. But that's all beside the fact. You're going off on tangents since you can't seem to actually argue points.

In order prove POSSESSION, one has to actually you know, possess something. Having a hash file shows something was once there, but if it's gone, you don't really have it now, do you?

I don't posses any stolen money, because I spent it all. Gotcha. You're a really brilliant attorney.

[Krastyn]

I don't posses any stolen money, because I spent it all. Gotcha. You're a really brilliant attorney.

And you would be correct.

Just like if someone tried for a conviction of possession of child pornography based off only hash files, they would likely fail.

[LiiLoSNK]

And you would be correct.

Just like if someone tried for a conviction of possession of child pornography based off only hash files, they would likely fail.

How is it only hash files? I thought it was witness testimony, search history, and lewd pics of his own family on his phone?

If you're going to be a good pedo defender, you have to make sure not to intentionally miss out on the details.

If I spend money and I can't explain where I got it from, this is another detail to the case.

[Masark]

How is it only hash files? I thought it was witness testimony, search history, and lewd pics of his own family on his phone?

Given the fact that they haven't even attempted to charge him, those latter things are evidently insufficient.

And unless the court document linked are dropping a lot of detail somewhere, I highly question the existence of said hashes.

[LiiLoSNK]

Given the fact that they haven't even attempted to charge him, those latter things are evidently insufficient.

And unless the court document linked are dropping a lot of detail somewhere, I highly question the existence of said hashes.

Take it up with the forensic examination then?

And yea, maybe they are insufficient for their goal to put this guy away for a longer time since he's clearly up to no good.

It's unsettling that you find more people defending pedophiles here than on places like 4chan. Good job, MMOC.

[Masark]

It's unsettling that you find more people defending pedophiles here than on places like 4chan. Good job, MMOC.

I don't care about the guy. I care about it being a horrible precedent to set.

[Krastyn]

How is it only hash files? I thought it was witness testimony, search history, and lewd pics of his own family on his phone?

Search history is past tense. It only shows that someone at some point in time, searched something. It has nothing to do with possession.

I've already said as far as the sister goes, the story gave no context. You have given no context. You also fully believe her. Some facts about their interaction:
- She first claimed him showing her child porn over a year before the seizure.
- She lived in his apartment for over five months after that point and never claimed seeing anything while there.
- She didn't tell police anything when he had his iPhone seized by police
- After moving out of his place, and after he stopped paying her living expenses, that is when she approached the police about her claims (a month after the phone seizure).

That makes her not the pinnacle of credibility and doesn't touch the status of the current situation, since her only claim to seeing something was over a year prior.

So the witness is out, the search history is out, and at best now, you have the images on his phone.

I'll give you that the photos could be damning, but since neither of us have seen them, that's complete speculation.

Not a very solid case it seems.