[spiraldancing]

Devil's Advocate — in the entire history of US law, if police can convince a judge that they have a good enough reason, judge can give the cops permission to break into your house, your bedroom, your diary, your safety deposit box, the safe you buried in your shed ... a judge always had the choice to decide whether or not cops get to invade your privacy.

For the first time, ever, strong encryption changes that paradigm. Personally, I'm still in favor of it, but it really is a very fundamental game-changer.

[oconnore]

I think it's just changed. They can't read your diary or your photo albums anymore, but they can see purchase history down to the second, they can (in theory) track your location in real time and cross reference it against others, they have full financials, social media, etc.

It's still the case that dumb criminals without good opsec will get caught and prosecuted, and it's no news that criminals that have good opsec are hard to catch.

[sasaf5]

"a judge always had the choice to decide whether or not cops get to invade your privacy."

Judges could not, and cannot, force anyone to reveal information, which is different from providing access to physical places and objects.

Strong encryption just gives leverage for what you can store in the domain of your own mind, by allowing you to unlock lots of physical data with some small piece of memorized information.

Essentially, little has changed, except perhaps the ever increasing hunger of the state to control people's lives.

[sjg007]

They can hold you in contempt for not providing decryption keys. That would suck if you legitimately forgot your password..

[dllthomas]

Has it been tested whether they can hold you in contempt if you consistently claim to have forgotten the password? In the (ongoing?) case I am aware of the person in question first explicitly refused.