From: mgream@acacia.itd.uts.edu.au (Matthew Gream)
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 93 20:09:02 PDT
To: 72114.1712@compuserve.com (Sandy)
Subject: Re: POISON PILL WIMPS
In-Reply-To: <931003184257_72114.1712_FHF56-1@CompuServe.COM>
Message-ID: <9310040306.AA26350@acacia.itd.uts.EDU.AU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Earlier, Sandy wrote:

>     . . . attempting to play 'smart-ass' to your
>     investigators is only going to result in more problems
>     for you. Its a non-ideal world, and they definitely have
>     the ability to cause you substantial problems.
[..]
> Didn't any of you appeasers and apologists read and *understand*
> HACKER CRACKDOWN?  Once you are the focus of an investigation,
> they are already causing you substantial problems.  Cooperation
> only gives your tormentors more ammunition.  You are not going
> to convince them of anything.  You cannot talk your way out of
> anything.  What you can--and will--do is dig yourself in deeper.
> After that, you will probably try to get off the hook by rolling
> over--like a bitch in heat--on your friends and associates.
> 
> The ONLY thing that works is (a) stonewall, stonewall, stonewall
> until you get competent legal representation, then (b) do what
> your lawyer's says.  Period.

What I said shouldn't have come out that way if you have interpreted
it as such. I don't advocate becoming a subordinate to the wishes of
what the 'authority' wants, and I don't mean for an individual to lay
out everything and anything as a 'narc'.  Co-operation doesn't have
to mean giving your investigators ammunition.

Firstly, methods that destroy your equipment after it has been seized
are most probably illegal (I'm no expert on legal things) and are only
going to cause you trouble. Part of the thread was about this, and I was
disagreeing. 

Further to this, I was attempting to point out that if you have something
you _don't_ want found, then simply encrypting it leaving it sitting on 
your system is probably not going to work. You may decide not to answer
any questions about it, you may refuse and so on, but they are going to
want the magic little key and keep pressing (maybe while you are under
oath). To prevent any of this occuring, the best approach (in my mind) is
to encrypt it into a form that will never be suspect as anything more than
harmless, trivial, information.

Say you do have something encrypted, and you are being pressed for its key,
then (as you say), your legal representitive is the ONLY solution you
should take, and you should be as co-operative as you can within the bounds
of your legal rights. 

The last thing I want to be is an apologist for law enforcement in terms
of the electronic medium. Those who know me would tell you that I am
outspoken about the Australian Federal Police and their activities in
the area of Computer Crime and Investigation.

Matthew.
-- 
Matthew Gream, M.Gream@uts.edu.au. "... encryption is the ultimate means of
Consent Technologies, 02-821-2043.  protection against an Orwellian state."