English 19-year-old jailed for refusal to disclose decryption key

[John Case]

On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Ulex Europae wrote:

>> a 19-year-old just got a 16-month jail sentence for his refusal to
>> disclose the password that would have allowed investigators to see
>> what was on his hard drive.
>> 
>> I suppose that, if the authorities could not read his stuff
>> without the key, it may mean that the software he was using may
>> have had no links weaker than the encryption itself
>
> Or, it might only mean that the prosecutor decided not to spend
> that time and money since there was a handy law to charge the
> lad as being in violation of.


Or that the ability to break [truecrypt|gpg|pgp|whatever] is an incredibly 
valuable thing, and you aren't going to blow it on a petty prosecution.

Very likely, if that ability exists anywhere, knowledge of its existence 
is very highly guarded.

ObSSLBackdoorHoneypotProposal ... you know the drill.  The only question 
is, what could you obtain, and resend over and over again, that would be 
worth someone like the US Govt ... or Apple Computer ... tipping their 
hand ?