Crypto at the coal-face

[professor rat]

I HAD THE SHEER JOY
Submitted by Luke from DC (not verified) on Tue, 09/21/2021 - ( Anarchist News )

of getting evidence that encryption on a computer stolen by the pigs in a 2008 raid was never cracked. This even though I was a known and high-profile target. Encryption does in fact work. If the government could easily break encryption so much of the time, they would not be screaming for backdoors from phone makers. Rather, we see occasional cracks of weak passphrases or of machines that had poor physical security around themselves.

Bigger problem is this: your phone and computer are encrypted, but you have at least one codefendent who did not use encryption at all. Avoiding this in a large group can be a real problem. Same if you leave your phone at home but someone else in your crew brings an Android phone to a covert action with Google Maps running, location sharing on, tied to a Google account. I've seen cases where cops ignored all encrypted phones entirely but got what they wanted from unencrypted phones. Security of the group is as strong as the weakest link.