January 24, 2012, 08:39
JohnRJudge orders woman to give up password to hard drive
In the future, your hard drive may not be your hard drive: A federal judge has ruled that a Colorado woman, charged in a mortgage scam case, must turn over the password needed to decrypt her hard drive so that police can view the files on it.
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"I find and conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer," the judge said in his ruling Tuesday, as reported by CNET.
MSNBC linkWe should be watching cases like this as default encryption on phones and computers becomes an obstacle to investigations.