You're right, but I posed this very question to Kevin Mitnick once. He had just recounted how, during his prosecution, he'd been forced to give up his passphrase. (This was several years ago, and so I might have some specific details wrong, and I'm also going to be a bit vague about it as a result.) I asked him why he didn't just plead the 5th. He said he tried, but that they moved him into solitary and they started abusing him in jail. (abuse is my word, I don't remember the specifics) and they they used every method they could to force him to give up the passphrase, including, I believe, holding him in contempt for not revealing it. Eventually he revealed it.
It is my opinion, having read accounts of people being prosecuted by the government for various crimes over the past 20 years, that in many cases, the government does not hold itself within the bounds of the law, and that such prosecutions are often illegal themselves. Yet, they are able to get away with this, because, what prosecutor is going to destroy their career by pressing charges on cops, other prosecutors or judges?
Also, in this day and age, asset forfeiture is extremely easy. The government can seize all of your assets, effectively denying you the ability to pay your legal counsel, forcing you to rely on the legal services they provide for you. Further, even if you can afford your own counsel, as an "officer of the court" they are subject to extreme pressure. I've read about a fair number of situations where lawyers would not even introduce constitutional arguments for their defendants innocence because it would result in recriminations against the lawyers by the judge. (e.g.: its "frivolous" to claim that federal drug laws are unconstitutional, even though to criminalize alcohol an amendment was needed.)
I'm not a lawyer, of course, this is just my perspective.
It's unlikely there will be a breakthrough that allows adversaries (in the cryptography sense) to crack properly implemented strong encryption. Faced with this dilemma, the only other options for the government are varying degrees of black-bag and rubber-hose cryptanalysis. Surveillance (legal or otherwise), asset forfeiture laws, jailing for contempt, lawsuits, deception -- all are just different forms of the rubber hose. It worked against Mitnick, and it would probably work against most of us.
I'm hesitant to mention this again but it does seem that rubber hose is being overplayed as a trump card here too much. Shadow volumes and multiple layered passphrases in arbitrary memorised data offsets on various volumes amongst a scatter of purely random data is completely invulnerable to rubber hose.
It all depends on exactly how paranoid you are as to how deep you go with layers of misdirection here of course but the point remains, they cannot continuously compel you to provide a passphrase when they do not know that another one actually exists.
This is the one arena where the only reason the government has any power at all is due to our ignorance, they do not, and indeed should not, have any power at all in this realm.
I understand this, I mean that they don't know how many layers of misdirection are actually involved, you can provide n fake layers of encryption with trivially incriminating information, as long as the "free space" of the volume in question contains randomised data, they can never know if it is actually an encrypted volume one level deeper or not.
rdtsc's point is that you are assuming that the system will play by their own rules. Not necessarily the case, especially when the entire weight of public opinion is against you.
My point is that I understand that, I'm not expecting the system restrict itself in any way shape or form, this is par for the course in many places around the world where no quarter can be expected from the authorities. They can't continue to compel you for more and more passphrases for more and more encrypted shadow volumes that they're not even aware actually exist, this is what it eventually reduces down to.
> They can't continue to compel you for more and more passphrases for more and more encrypted shadow volumes that they're not even aware actually exist
The point is, they can. If you're in some place run by a dictator they can do whatever the hell they want to you, including torturing you until you die.
Sure, but it's tactically useless, as they can't know if they're just applying useless pressure because they don't know how many layers of shadow volumes there are to penetrate. So yes, they can be pricks, but to no discernible effect.
People in power have never been short on excuses for abuses thereof, this aspect of this issue is just another in a huge ocean of existing valid and arbitrary ones.
It is my opinion, having read accounts of people being prosecuted by the government for various crimes over the past 20 years, that in many cases, the government does not hold itself within the bounds of the law, and that such prosecutions are often illegal themselves. Yet, they are able to get away with this, because, what prosecutor is going to destroy their career by pressing charges on cops, other prosecutors or judges?
Also, in this day and age, asset forfeiture is extremely easy. The government can seize all of your assets, effectively denying you the ability to pay your legal counsel, forcing you to rely on the legal services they provide for you. Further, even if you can afford your own counsel, as an "officer of the court" they are subject to extreme pressure. I've read about a fair number of situations where lawyers would not even introduce constitutional arguments for their defendants innocence because it would result in recriminations against the lawyers by the judge. (e.g.: its "frivolous" to claim that federal drug laws are unconstitutional, even though to criminalize alcohol an amendment was needed.)
I'm not a lawyer, of course, this is just my perspective.