Computers seized by police

[J Bloggs]

A friend has had his computers, mobile phones, DVDs seized by police.
What sort of time frames are we talking about for them to return it?

Some of the data on his computers are encrypted. Do the police have to
charge him and take him to court to compel him to release the
encryption keys?

What happens if he says "he forgot" the encryption keys, given the
very stressful time as he is going through?

[Periander]

It all depends on what they were taken for. If is was simply communications
data ... emails, chat logs, skype logs and the like it shouldn't take to
long(*). If it's images, stolen data, code used in hacking then they'll have
to look at the encrypted files, no the police do not have to take your
friend to court to require him to disclose the keys, he can say that he's
forgotten the keys and hope for a sympathetic jury. If the worst comes to
the worst and the police are insistent on looking at the encrypted data the
computers will be sent off to GCHQ who will crunch the numbers and give them
the once over in their down time - I have it on reliable authority that they
love this kind of work. Obviously though the waiting list is very long and
only the higher priority work is considered for submission there.

(*) The number of qualified and certified labs available to do this kind of
work is strictly limited, if they're busy with higher priority work then
obviously it'll take longer ... within 3 months is a good estimate though in
this day and age.

--

All the best,

Periander

[Janitor of Lunacy]

"J Bloggs" <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d1cae1d-dbf8-4b79...@ib4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...

>A friend has had his computers, mobile phones, DVDs seized by police.
> What sort of time frames are we talking about for them to return it?
>

It depends if any evidence of a crime is found, in which case it can be
forfeited by order of a court on conviction. Otherwise, I believe about two
years is not an unusual delay (and that's if nothing is found).

> Some of the data on his computers are encrypted. Do the police have to
> charge him and take him to court to compel him to release the
> encryption keys?

No, they can require him by a section 49 notice to reveal any encryption
keys under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, assuming that
they know or reasonably suspect that there is encrypted data on any of these
devices and that this person knows the key(s). If he refuses, he can be
charged with a separate offence, which generally tends to attract the same
sort of penalty (usually prison) that the suspected material would attract.
In the case of "child indecency" cases, this is 5 years maximum.

> What happens if he says "he forgot" the encryption keys, given the
> very stressful time as he is going through?

Then it would be up to a jury whether they believe him, but the way the Act
(section 53(3)) is worded, this would require pretty cogent evidence, and if
we're talking about indecent images of children, I wouldn't bet on that
defence working.

[D.M. Procida]

Janitor of Lunacy <zo...@zonk.com> wrote:

> "J Bloggs" <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3d1cae1d-dbf8-4b79...@ib4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...

> > Some of the data on his computers are encrypted. Do the police have to
> > charge him and take him to court to compel him to release the
> > encryption keys?

> No, they can require him by a section 49 notice to reveal any encryption
> keys under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, assuming that
> they know or reasonably suspect that there is encrypted data on any of these
> devices and that this person knows the key(s). If he refuses, he can be
> charged with a separate offence, which generally tends to attract the same
> sort of penalty (usually prison) that the suspected material would attract.
> In the case of "child indecency" cases, this is 5 years maximum.

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/27/oxbridge_kent_ddos_suspect/>

"Court date set: Man facing rare refusal-to-unlock-encryption charge"

So apparently it's rare to refuse. Or perhaps it's rare to face the
charge for it.

Daniele

[Periander]

On 27-Nov-2012, "Janitor of Lunacy" <zo...@zonk.com> wrote:

> It depends if any evidence of a crime is found, in which case it can be
> forfeited by order of a court on conviction. Otherwise, I believe about
> two years is not an unusual delay (and that's if nothing is found).

Nowadays most labs are now on a contract stipulating a month's turn around
so allowing a month for the police to place the devices, a month to do the
work and a month for the OIC to review the reports and take advice then
assuming there's nothing on them and it's all been some kind of mistake then
3 months should see the job out. It really shouldn't take longer unless of
course evidential material is found or any encrypted files have been found.

[J Bloggs]

Thank you everyone for your advice. This isn't a child pornography
case.

This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
accessibility, quantified. Even he was not so stupid to try building
it at home - it would have required a lab with substantial toxic
hazard handling capabilities.

Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
He did not seek out indecent images of children, but can not say for
certain there will not be any indecent images of children in his
unsolicited mail / spam folders or pictures of children of his
Facebook friends.

Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
computers for work?

When the police return the computers, will there be surveillance
equipment or software installed in them?

[J Bloggs]

Also, this friend keeps a research log with a very substantial number
of invention concepts on his computer, which he is very concerned
about for commercial reasons.

Of the many patents he has, they only represent about 5% of the ideas
he has described in his research log.

This investigation goes beyond the police and Special Branch, because
for either to have been aware of his communication with his friend
(written in an official capacity, at his friend's invitation), OGD's
in the defence and security sectors had to be involved.

His main concern is that the 95% unpatented inventions may be left on
trains or passed on to prime contractors for exploitation with him
being left out of pocket.

[Big Les Wade]

Janitor of Lunacy <zo...@zonk.com> posted

>
>"J Bloggs" <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3d1cae1d-dbf8-4b79...@ib4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...

>> What happens if he says "he forgot" the encryption keys, given the
>> very stressful time as he is going through?

He can also say that the encryption keys were among the materials seized
by the police.

Or that he had them written on paper but destroyed them before being
served with the s53 notice. I don't know if anyone's run that defence
yet. Doubtless Periander will allege that it would amount to PCJ, but
again I do not know if a criminal court has pronounced on it yet. It
would be difficult to prove PCJ without first proving that a "primary"
offence had already been committed.

>Then it would be up to a jury whether they believe him, but the way the Act
>(section 53(3)) is worded, this would require pretty cogent evidence, and if
>we're talking about indecent images of children, I wouldn't bet on that
>defence working.

Without wishing to point out the obvious, though, it will be hard to
show that the files contain indecent images of children unless they can
be decrypted.

--
Les

[Roland Perry]

In message <1NUWV4H+...@obviously.invalid>, at 09:45:04 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com> remarked:

>He can also say that the encryption keys were among the materials
>seized by the police.

An increasingly common scenario, now that password managers are becoming
popular.

>Without wishing to point out the obvious, though, it will be hard to
>show that the files contain indecent images of children unless they can
>be decrypted.

There could be traffic data available that shows where they came from,
which might be strong circumstantial evidence.
--
Roland Perry

[Jethro_uk]

However, as has been commented on in this group, and ukl before, the
police appear to keep computers for inordinate amounts of time as an
extra judicial punishment.

These days it's fairly easy to set things up so your main computer is
either running as a virtual machine, or can be recovered quickly from a
disk image. With any data you need backed up (or indeed primarily stored)
in the cloud, you should be up and running in a few hours.

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
>
> This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
> patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
> presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
> he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
> creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
> assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
> 500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
> to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
> accessibility, quantified. Even he was not so stupid to try building
> it at home - it would have required a lab with substantial toxic
> hazard handling capabilities.

I suppose that they will take this seriously enough to send the PC to
GCHQ if he withholds the key.

Even after decryption, given the nature of this latest invention, I
would doubt whether they will return it to him. (Any thoughts on that
from the professional(s)?)

> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.

Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
see how a prosecution can succeed.

> He did not seek out indecent images of children, but can not say for
> certain there will not be any indecent images of children in his
> unsolicited mail / spam folders or pictures of children of his
> Facebook friends.

Hopefully, some common sense will prevail. Hopefully ....

You are allowed to have pictures of children of Facebook friends,
provided that they are not indecent.

>
> Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
> computers for work?

Buy new ones.

[Big Les Wade]

Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted

>In message <1NUWV4H+...@obviously.invalid>, at 09:45:04 on Tue, 27
>Nov 2012, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com> remarked:

>>Without wishing to point out the obvious, though, it will be hard to
>>show that the files contain indecent images of children unless they
>>can be decrypted.
>
>There could be traffic data available that shows where they came from,
>which might be strong circumstantial evidence.

If that traffic data evidence is strong enough to show beyond reasonable
doubt that the files were indecent images of children, then the police
do not need to decrypt the files. If it isn't, then it won't be strong
enough to disprove his defence of having forgotten the keys either.

For contrary to what the Janitor said earlier, that defence does *not*
require "pretty cogent evidence" to support it, it merely requires that
the defendant "raises the issue" (I think that's the wording in RIPA).

Moreover (again IIRC) the nature of the alleged predicate offences has
got nothing to do with whether the s53 defence is plausible.

At least that's what the law says. Whether the courts obey it, or
whether they go their own sweet way as they did in the interpretation of
POCA, may be another matter.

--
Les

[Roland Perry]

In message <50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 11:05:02 on
Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:

>Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>see how a prosecution can succeed.

Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
usually "are they pre-pubescent".
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <SMiP1ZLm...@obviously.invalid>, at 11:25:02 on Tue, 27

Nov 2012, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com> remarked:

>If that traffic data evidence is strong enough to show beyond
>reasonable doubt that the files were indecent images of children, then
>the police do not need to decrypt the files.

Although there are (at times controversial) scales of indecency on
specific photos, which the traffic data might not indicate.

>If it isn't, then it won't be strong enough to disprove his defence of
>having forgotten the keys either.

That would seem to nullify the entire idea that the penalty for refusing
to decrypt is in any way linked to the offence which might be revealed
if they were decrypted. Or did they just pick a standard number of years
out of a hat on the basis that the files must be "that serious for one
reason or another" or there wouldn't be a refusal?
--
Roland Perry

[Jethro_uk]

Isn't it the case that the age of the model is immaterial, and it's the
appearance that matters ?

[tim.....]

"Periander" <u...@britwar.couk> wrote in message
news:ahih0m...@mid.individual.net...

I don't think that he wants to know how long it would take them to
investigate what's on the computer

He's interested in how long it will be left gathering dust in a cupboard
after that has been completed :-)

tim

[tim.....]

"Janitor of Lunacy" <zo...@zonk.com> wrote in message
news:SLUss.379428$YJ1.1...@fx09.am4...

How are they going to have any evidence that the encrypted stuff is images
of children (indecent or otherwise), if the data is encrypted?

tim

[J Bloggs]

GB wrote:
> On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
> >
> > This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
> > patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
> > presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
> > he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
> > creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
> > assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
> > 500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
> > to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
> > accessibility, quantified. Even he was not so stupid to try building
> > it at home - it would have required a lab with substantial toxic
> > hazard handling capabilities.
>
> I suppose that they will take this seriously enough to send the PC to
> GCHQ if he withholds the key.
>
> Even after decryption, given the nature of this latest invention, I
> would doubt whether they will return it to him. (Any thoughts on that
> from the professional(s)?)

Is there any precedent for police (or OGDs) withholding returning such
items, and on what grounds?

Why would the authorities hold computers, laptops, DVDs (incl. the
latest season of 24), etc. when a several kilobyte text file is all
they are upset about?

There is full expectation from people in the know about this case that
the police will probably not press charges. My friend is naive, child-
like in his curiosity for science and in his thought processes (as
most brilliant scientists are) but certainly not a terrorist.

[tim.....]

"GB" <NOTso...@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk...

> On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
>>
>> This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
>> patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
>> presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
>> he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
>> creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
>> assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
>> 500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
>> to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
>> accessibility, quantified. Even he was not so stupid to try building
>> it at home - it would have required a lab with substantial toxic
>> hazard handling capabilities.
>
> I suppose that they will take this seriously enough to send the PC to GCHQ
> if he withholds the key.
>
> Even after decryption, given the nature of this latest invention, I would
> doubt whether they will return it to him. (Any thoughts on that from the
> professional(s)?)
>
>
>> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
>> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
>> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
>> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
>
> Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the legal
> age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't see how a
> prosecution can succeed.

It doesn't have to be proven. The offense is committed if the picture is of
someone *appearing* to be less than the legal age (a fact that a jury will
determine for themselves).

AIUI convictions have been obtained for possession of pictures of models who
are proved to be adults, dressed in school uniform (and of pictures of
babies heads morphed onto generic stock adult porno).

tim

[Man at B&Q]

On Nov 27, 9:00 am, J Bloggs <jbloggs461...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer

Run that one past me again. What exactly are you implying?

MBQ

[John Briggs]

The Australians have taken this to extremes, by banning pictures of
flat-chested women...
--
John Briggs

[John Briggs]

On 27/11/2012 11:05, GB wrote:
> On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
>>
>> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
>> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
>> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
>> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
>
> Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
> legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
> see how a prosecution can succeed.

No, the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
--
John Briggs

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 12:10, J Bloggs wrote:

>
> There is full expectation from people in the know about this case that
> the police will probably not press charges. My friend is naive, child-
> like in his curiosity for science and in his thought processes (as
> most brilliant scientists are) but certainly not a terrorist.

What sort of charges would be appropriate? I cannot think of anything.
It's not illegal to consider that sort of thing, and telling the
government about it seems all in his favour.

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 12:30, John Briggs wrote:

>>> Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
>>> usually "are they pre-pubescent".
>>
>> Isn't it the case that the age of the model is immaterial, and it's the
>> appearance that matters ?
>
> The Australians have taken this to extremes, by banning pictures of
> flat-chested women...

I was thinking that puberty is held up by being half-starved. I suspect
that's how some of the lady gymnasts manage to be waif-like well into
late teens/early twenties. Maybe some drug help there, too. But I
suppose there is a distinct lack of pubes.

So, the pre-pubescent test does not necessarily tell you much about
chronological age. But maybe apparent age is what ought to matter, anyway?

[GB]

I think that he's implying that there are two types of men. Those with
pr0n on their hard drives, and those who are meticulous about deleting it.

[Man at B&Q]

On Nov 27, 2:00 pm, GB <NOTsome...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> On 27/11/2012 12:40, Man at B&Q wrote:
>
> > On Nov 27, 9:00 am, J Bloggs <jbloggs461...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer
>
> > Run that one past me again. What exactly are you implying?
>
> > MBQ
>
> I think that he's implying that there are two types of men. Those with

> porn on their hard drives, and those who are meticulous about deleting it.

That comment is no better.

MBQ

[Roland Perry]

In message <vV1ts.518748$Bz2.4...@fx11.am4>, at 12:00:11 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> remarked:

>> Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
>> usually "are they pre-pubescent".
>
>Isn't it the case that the age of the model is immaterial, and it's the
>appearance that matters ?

Pubescence is determined by their physical appearance.
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <Zn2ts.563627$9D6.1...@fx27.am4>, at 12:35:02 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> remarked:

>the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.

Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
(and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18 year
olds instead).
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <ahjp15...@mid.individual.net>, at 12:15:10 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, tim..... <tims_n...@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:

>How are they going to have any evidence that the encrypted stuff is
>images of children (indecent or otherwise), if the data is encrypted?

The filenames might not be encrypted. And the filenames of indecent
material that's commonly circulating on the net are well known to
investigators. Best not to use one as the title of your encrypted novel.
--
Roland Perry

[tim.....]

"Roland Perry" <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:KWBbXpNd...@perry.co.uk...

Isn't the determination whether a picture of a 16 years old is indecent,
different to the determination whether a picture of a 18 years old is
indecent?

tim

[tim.....]

"August West" <aug...@kororaa.com> wrote in message
news:874nkbm...@news2.kororaa.com...

>
> The entity calling itself Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>> And the filenames of indecent material that's commonly circulating on
>> the net are well known to investigators. Best not to use one as the
>> title of your encrypted novel.
>

> That helpful hint rather assumes that one knows thse "well known" names.

lolita :-)

ISTM that such files are going to have names such as:

IMG_4538
or
DCP_0107

cos that's what the camera called them.

tim

[Jethro_uk]

I recall in the 80s a picture in the Sun (my housemate got it ;) ) of a
14 year old topless. The "story" was she had entered some sort of wet T
shirt competition in Spain, with her mother.

[Ian Jackson]

In article <1cfd79da-d022-4627...@u4g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,

J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
>patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
>presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
>he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
>creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
>assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
>500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
>to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
>accessibility, quantified.

This just goes to show that it's a very bad idea to try to cooperate
with the authorities by reporting to them things related to "hot
button" topics like trrrrr and kiddie porn.

This is a shame because if people were more confident that the
authorities wouldn't go mad, more of us would be helpful.

>Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
>computers for work?

No. The police are on this question effectively a law unto
themselves. I expect it will be years before your friend gets them
back, if they get them back at all. In the meantime the police will
probably be trawling them to try to find something to retrospectively
justify the seizure.

Your friend should (a) get a lawyer right away (b) buy new computers
and restore the data from his backups.

--
Ian Jackson personal email: <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
These opinions are my own. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/
PGP2 key 1024R/0x23f5addb, fingerprint 5906F687 BD03ACAD 0D8E602E FCF37657

[F Murtz]

??????

[Big Les Wade]

Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted

Who knows what Their thought processes are? But anyway the penalties for
refusing to decrypt are only relevant if it is proved that the defendant
is guilty of refusing to decrypt, rather than being unable to. The
suspected nature of the material doesn't seem to have much bearing on
the prosecution's ability to prove that, although in certain cases it
might.

--
Les

[Jethro_uk]

Indeed. Wasn't there a case shortly after the law, where the model
offered to testify as to her age (I think she was American) ? In the end
the CPS dropped the case, but it was pointed out at the time that if they
had proceeded, her testimony would be irrelevant (and probably not
allowed).

[Cynic]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:00:12 +0000, J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com>
wrote:

IANAL, but I have danced this dance a few times ...

>Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
>computers for work?

It is possible that the police will be willing to copy a few files
from his computer if he makes a very convincing case that he needs
them desperately *and* the police do not believe he is likwely to be
guilty of a very serious offence.

>When the police return the computers, will there be surveillance
>equipment or software installed in them?

Be prepared for the computers to be retained by the police for a year.
Basically act in the same way as you would if they had been stolen and
get replacements and try to replace the data.

I have had computers seized on two separate occasions in the past 5
years. On one of those occassions, both computers seized were
non-functional when they were eventually returned due to mis-assembly.
I foolishly switched one on before checking it and both the PSU and
the MB blew due to mis-wiring. I then examined the other before
powering up and discovered the power connector to the MB had been
jammed in the wrong way around just like the other (which requires
considerable force to achieve). The sound card had also had its power
cable reversed, and the ribbon connector to the floppy drive was the
wrong way around with the IDE cables to the HDDs left disconnected.
One RAM sick was missing. The first set of computers took 10 months
to return, the second a mere 3 months. There was however over 9TB of
HDDs and about 1000 CDs and DVDs to examine on the first occasion, and
on the second occassion the computers had not been examined at all
(which I know because the case seals I had applied had not been
broken).

You should know that if the police decide to invoke RIPA to demand the
key/password to encrypted files, that demand must be in writing, and
the police have to get permission to invoke it (I think from the Home
Office?). It is IMO important *not* to volunteer the keys unless and
until a legal and official written demand under RIPA is made. The
*threat* of using RIPA is being used to get people to disclose their
keys, and it is important IMO that we get accurate statistics of how
many times the police have invoked RIPA to get keys, and in what
percentage of cases that demand has resulted in evidential material
being found. The statistics will only be accurate if the police are
forced to jump through the hoops and don't succeed in intimidating
suspects to give up their keys voluntarily.

If your friend does not yet have a lawyer, please advise him not to
attend any further police interrogations without one - it is his right
and is free.

As in this case he is not suspected of any sexual offences, it is IMO
unlikely that the police will take any action over normal adult
pornography even if a few models are borderline 18. If he uses
Internet Explorer, they will however almost certainly recover his
*complete* browsing history, because IE retains a hidden copy of that
even if he regularly cleared his "history". It is likely that they
will also be able to recover most of his emails (sent and received) as
well as a lot of files he has deleted in the past month or so. If he
has any reason to be worried, he must not allow any guilty conscience
to prompt him to volunteer any information - wait for an accusation!
I managed to get sight of the police forensic report on my first set
of computers, and whilst I had nothing illegal to be worried about, it
surprised me how much the police did *not* examine. They did not, for
example, list any of the large amount of data (which included many
photographs) on two live "RAID" disks. I can only assume that the
police could not easily decipher the RAID method used and decided not
to bother with them at all. i had encrypted data, but the police did
not ask me about it (it was in fact legal documents, which may have
made for an interesting argument under RIPA had they been demanded
because the police have no right to seize such documents).

--
Cynic

[J Bloggs]

Cynic wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:00:12 +0000, J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> IANAL, but I have danced this dance a few times ...
>
> >Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
> >computers for work?
>
> It is possible that the police will be willing to copy a few files
> from his computer if he makes a very convincing case that he needs
> them desperately *and* the police do not believe he is likwely to be
> guilty of a very serious offence.

He can produce documentation (actually, the police seized it too) that
he is under contract by OGD's to do work for them.

> >When the police return the computers, will there be surveillance
> >equipment or software installed in them?
>
> Be prepared for the computers to be retained by the police for a year.
> Basically act in the same way as you would if they had been stolen and
> get replacements and try to replace the data.

Unfortunately, the police seized ALL backups. Data of the order of
tens of TB were seized - 1000's of DVDs and many hard drives.

How would you suggest that backups be kept in the future?

> I have had computers seized on two separate occasions in the past 5
> years. On one of those occassions, both computers seized were
> non-functional when they were eventually returned due to mis-assembly.
> I foolishly switched one on before checking it and both the PSU and
> the MB blew due to mis-wiring. I then examined the other before
> powering up and discovered the power connector to the MB had been
> jammed in the wrong way around just like the other (which requires
> considerable force to achieve). The sound card had also had its power
> cable reversed, and the ribbon connector to the floppy drive was the
> wrong way around with the IDE cables to the HDDs left disconnected.
> One RAM sick was missing. The first set of computers took 10 months
> to return, the second a mere 3 months. There was however over 9TB of
> HDDs and about 1000 CDs and DVDs to examine on the first occasion, and
> on the second occassion the computers had not been examined at all
> (which I know because the case seals I had applied had not been
> broken).

I am sorry to hear. Seeing the anguish and violation my friend has
gone through, I can truly empathise with you. It is truly a dreadful
thing to have to happen to someone.

> You should know that if the police decide to invoke RIPA to demand the
> key/password to encrypted files, that demand must be in writing, and
> the police have to get permission to invoke it (I think from the Home
> Office?). It is IMO important *not* to volunteer the keys unless and
> until a legal and official written demand under RIPA is made. The
> *threat* of using RIPA is being used to get people to disclose their
> keys, and it is important IMO that we get accurate statistics of how
> many times the police have invoked RIPA to get keys, and in what
> percentage of cases that demand has resulted in evidential material
> being found. The statistics will only be accurate if the police are
> forced to jump through the hoops and don't succeed in intimidating
> suspects to give up their keys voluntarily.

Unfortunately his solicitor (who was the duty solicitor for a nearby
station, and not the one he asked for, see related thread on police
slip-up) advised him to reveal all keys the police asked for to "speed
up their enquiries". He did so and the police are now in possession of
a few decryption keys and PINs.

> If your friend does not yet have a lawyer, please advise him not to
> attend any further police interrogations without one - it is his right
> and is free.
>
> As in this case he is not suspected of any sexual offences, it is IMO
> unlikely that the police will take any action over normal adult
> pornography even if a few models are borderline 18. If he uses
> Internet Explorer, they will however almost certainly recover his
> *complete* browsing history, because IE retains a hidden copy of that
> even if he regularly cleared his "history". It is likely that they
> will also be able to recover most of his emails (sent and received) as
> well as a lot of files he has deleted in the past month or so. If he
> has any reason to be worried, he must not allow any guilty conscience
> to prompt him to volunteer any information - wait for an accusation!
> I managed to get sight of the police forensic report on my first set
> of computers, and whilst I had nothing illegal to be worried about, it
> surprised me how much the police did *not* examine. They did not, for
> example, list any of the large amount of data (which included many
> photographs) on two live "RAID" disks. I can only assume that the
> police could not easily decipher the RAID method used and decided not
> to bother with them at all. i had encrypted data, but the police did
> not ask me about it (it was in fact legal documents, which may have
> made for an interesting argument under RIPA had they been demanded
> because the police have no right to seize such documents).

Thank you for your advice. Do you know if the authorities will retain
copies of all his data forever? It doesn't seem sensible that the
police would make copies of his latest episodes of 24, just in case he
used steganography to hide a covert message there.

Do you know anything about the likelihood of surveillance equipment or
software in the returned hard drives/computers, such as keyloggers?

[Roland Perry]

In message <ahk1ef...@mid.individual.net>, at 14:40:03 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, tim..... <tims_n...@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:

>>>the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>>
>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>>(and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18
>>year olds instead).
>
>Isn't the determination whether a picture of a 16 years old is
>indecent, different to the determination whether a picture of a 18
>years old is indecent?

I would not have thought so. Indecency is about the pose, rather than
the age.
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <874nkbm...@news2.kororaa.com>, at 14:35:02 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, August West <aug...@kororaa.com> remarked:

>> And the filenames of indecent material that's commonly circulating on
>> the net are well known to investigators. Best not to use one as the
>> title of your encrypted novel.
>

>That helpful hint rather assumes that one knows thse "well known" names.

It would take enough monkeys a very long time to pick the same names at
random.
--
Roland Perry

[J Bloggs]

Ian Jackson wrote:
> In article <1cfd79da-d022-4627...@u4g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,
> J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
> >patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
> >presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
> >he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
> >creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
> >assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
> >500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
> >to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
> >accessibility, quantified.
>
> This just goes to show that it's a very bad idea to try to cooperate
> with the authorities by reporting to them things related to "hot
> button" topics like trrrrr and kiddie porn.

My friend was only doing what he thought was his civic duty. He
conceived the capability and like every other peaceful person was
horrified about its prospects as a WMD. He approached his friend in
government, who verbally advised him to send in an email describing
how to build the device. He did so, and in a few weeks the raid
followed.

> This is a shame because if people were more confident that the
> authorities wouldn't go mad, more of us would be helpful.

Needless to say he is undergoing much emotional anguish over the
matter.

> >Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
> >computers for work?
>
> No. The police are on this question effectively a law unto
> themselves. I expect it will be years before your friend gets them
> back, if they get them back at all. In the meantime the police will
> probably be trawling them to try to find something to retrospectively
> justify the seizure.
>
> Your friend should (a) get a lawyer right away (b) buy new computers
> and restore the data from his backups.

The police got all his backups. My friend might as well be starting
from scratch.

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 17:05, J Bloggs wrote:
>
> How would you suggest that backups be kept in the future?

Check out some of the online storage. Amazon will give you 5GB free, for
example.

>> I have had computers seized on two separate occasions in the past 5
>> years. On one of those occassions, both computers seized were
>> non-functional when they were eventually returned due to mis-assembly.
>> I foolishly switched one on before checking it and both the PSU and
>> the MB blew due to mis-wiring. I then examined the other before
>> powering up and discovered the power connector to the MB had been
>> jammed in the wrong way around just like the other (which requires
>> considerable force to achieve).

There's no reason for them to remove anything other than the hard disk,
so that may have been deliberate sabotage.

> Do you know anything about the likelihood of surveillance equipment or
> software in the returned hard drives/computers, such as keyloggers?
>

You can look inside the PCs to find any bugging equipment, but I think
it is unlikely. I would save all the data, then reinstall the PCs from
scratch, anyway.

I would have thought that his biggest concern would be his diary system
to keep all his patents renewed on time.

[Jethro_uk]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:20:01 +0000, J Bloggs wrote:

> The police got all his backups. My friend might as well be starting from
> scratch.

In that case they weren't backups. Just spare copies.

[Percy Picacity]

There are a surprising number of things that it is now potentially
illegal to consider out loud. For instance, owning a London A to Z can
be a crime. This is the classic police state arrangement where almost
anything can be illegal if the authorities dislike or fear the
perpetrator enough.

--

Percy Picacity

[Percy Picacity]

Are you saying this is in doubt? Or is the purpose of nakedness purely
anthropological? There may be some hypocrisy in the popular view that
sexual attractiveness is only permitted with a culturally acceptable
level of clothing. Or 'indecency' may be a remarkably difficult
concept to pin down.

--

Percy Picacity

[Percy Picacity]

On 2012-11-27 14:35:10 +0000, Ian Jackson said:

> In article <1cfd79da-d022-4627...@u4g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,
> J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
>> patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
>> presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
>> he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
>> creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
>> assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
>> 500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
>> to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
>> accessibility, quantified.
>
> This just goes to show that it's a very bad idea to try to cooperate
> with the authorities by reporting to them things related to "hot
> button" topics like trrrrr and kiddie porn.
>
> This is a shame because if people were more confident that the
> authorities wouldn't go mad, more of us would be helpful.

In the event of course that you were in a position to be helpful.
Which, of course, you aren't. I expect you meant to say that.

--

Percy Picacity

[Mark Goodge]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:55:02 +0000, August West put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>The one time my computers & equipment were siezed (in a civil dispute,
>nothing to do with child porn), the warrant (from the Court of Session)
>required me to surrender all backups, wherever located.

But by that do they mean "provide them with a copy" or "provide them with a
copy and delete them from their current location"?

If the police wanted a copy of my backups then it would be relatively
simple to give them access to them. But I can't hand over the physical
disks on which they reside, not least because I only have the vaguest idea
where they actually are and they're not mine to hand over anyway.

It seems to me that a phrase like "surrender all backups" dates from a time
when backups would have been stored on tapes or disks and physically
transported locally. It doesn't have a lot of meaning when backups are
stored at a remote (and physically inaccessible) location via the Internet.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

[Stuart A. Bronstein]

Mark Goodge <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

>>The one time my computers & equipment were siezed (in a civil
>>dispute, nothing to do with child porn), the warrant (from the
>>Court of Session) required me to surrender all backups, wherever
>>located.
>
> But by that do they mean "provide them with a copy" or "provide
> them with a copy and delete them from their current location"?

They want the actual disk, not copies. Among other reasons they
want to be able to search for deleted files that wouldn't show up
on a copy.

> If the police wanted a copy of my backups then it would be
> relatively simple to give them access to them. But I can't hand
> over the physical disks on which they reside, not least because
> I only have the vaguest idea where they actually are and they're
> not mine to hand over anyway.

Then you should inform them of who owns that equipment, and they
will seek access from them if they choose to.

___
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Roland Perry]

In message <737ts.518756$Bz2.3...@fx11.am4>, at 17:55:09 on Tue, 27
Nov 2012, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> remarked:

>> The police got all his backups. My friend might as well be starting from
>> scratch.
>
>In that case they weren't backups. Just spare copies.

That's a bit glib. And it's only a matter of time before the police
start seizing "in the cloud" backups. Most people regard a backup as
something which assures against computer failure, and a few against a
fire on the premises (backup in a fire safe). The number of people with
physical off-site backups is tiny.
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <64vss3....@news.alt.net>, at 20:25:01 on Tue, 27 Nov
2012, Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> remarked:

>>> the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>>(and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18 year
>>olds instead).
>
>Are you saying this is in doubt? Or is the purpose of nakedness purely
>anthropological? There may be some hypocrisy in the popular view that
>sexual attractiveness is only permitted with a culturally acceptable
>level of clothing. Or 'indecency' may be a remarkably difficult
>concept to pin down.

Indecency is not a synonym for titillating.
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <50b4fc35$0$10728$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 17:50:10 on
Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:

>> How would you suggest that backups be kept in the future?
>
>Check out some of the online storage. Amazon will give you 5GB free,
>for example.

My photos are more than 5GB. And I'm not even an enthusiastic
photographer. You can get 8GB on a double-layer DVD if you really want
to make a permanent and off-site backup.

I recently bought a 0.5TB NAS and was a tad disappointed to discover
that filling it up at the maximum data rate it's specified, takes about
three days (24x7).

All it has on it is some of the other backups I've taken over the years
(maybe a tenth of them). I'd hate to think how long it would take to
upload a TB, or how many people have a "truly unlimited" Internet
package that would allow it.
--
Roland Perry

[Tired]

Roland Perry wrote:
:: In message <50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 11:05:02 on

:: Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:

::: Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the

::: legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I
::: don't see how a prosecution can succeed.

::
:: Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is

:: usually "are they pre-pubescent".

:: --
:: Roland Perry

That's a pretty high bar. It would mean almost any over the age of twelve or
so would be sound if anoynmous.

[Ian Jackson]

In article <6ff98591-158d-499c...@r4g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Ian Jackson wrote:
>>This just goes to show that it's a very bad idea to try to cooperate
>>with the authorities by reporting to them things related to "hot
>>button" topics like trrrrr and kiddie porn.
>
>My friend was only doing what he thought was his civic duty.

Yes. It's very bad that a public-spirited person like your friend
should be persecuted in this way.

>Needless to say he is undergoing much emotional anguish over the
>matter.

Yes.

>>Your friend should (a) get a lawyer right away (b) buy new computers
>>and restore the data from his backups.
>
>The police got all his backups. My friend might as well be starting
>from scratch.

Oh dear. It may be that your friend could get a court to order that
copies of the data be made (by the police) and given over. This would
definitely involve hiring a good lawyer.

[Big Les Wade]

Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted

[at the risk of this being moderated out, as it was last time I
corrected you on this] There is nothing in either statute or case law
to support this statement. Indecency is not defined in law.

--
Les

[Iain Archer]

J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote on Tue, 27 Nov 2012 at
09:00:12:

>This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of
>patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
>presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
>he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
>creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
>assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
>500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
>to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and
>accessibility, quantified.

What were the grounds given for the making of the warrant and the
requirement to disclose keys?
--
Iain

[John Briggs]

As stated, at the beginning of 2010 by the Australian Classification
Board in respect of adult films and publications. This seems to have
been the result of a campaign by a child-protection group to prevent
women with an A-cup breast size from appearing in pornography, claiming
that it encouraged paedophilia. Apparently all flat-chested women are
under the legal age of consent...
--
John Briggs

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 20:20, Percy Picacity wrote:

> There are a surprising number of things that it is now potentially
> illegal to consider out loud. For instance, owning a London A to Z can
> be a crime. This is the classic police state arrangement where almost
> anything can be illegal if the authorities dislike or fear the
> perpetrator enough.
>

I think that we have half a dozen A-Zs.

[Zapp Brannigan]

"John Briggs" <john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Ll2ts.563617$9D6.2...@fx27.am4...

> On 27/11/2012 12:00, Jethro_uk wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:45:02 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:
>>
>>> In message<50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 11:05:02 on
>>> Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB<NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:
>>>> Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>>>> legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>>>> see how a prosecution can succeed.
>>>
>>> Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
>>> usually "are they pre-pubescent".
>>
>> Isn't it the case that the age of the model is immaterial, and it's the
>> appearance that matters ?
>
> The Australians have taken this to extremes, by banning pictures of
> flat-chested women...

What a splendidly cunning pretext...

[GB]

I back up 16GB daily (on-site). A lot of that is quite old stuff, and I
could manage perfectly well without it. So, a 5GB backup in the cloud
would easily hold all I really need.

Do you really need *all* your photos?

[the Omrud]

On 27/11/2012 21:05, Roland Perry wrote:

My internet backup service holds about 120GB of my data. I've no idea
where although I have a vague notion that it might be in California.

--
David

[Zapp Brannigan]

"Ian Jackson" <ijac...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in message
news:isA*9o...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
> In article
> <1cfd79da-d022-4627...@u4g2000pbo.googlegroups.com>,

> J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
>>computers for work?
>
> No. The police are on this question effectively a law unto
> themselves. I expect it will be years before your friend gets them
> back, if they get them back at all. In the meantime the police will
> probably be trawling them to try to find something to retrospectively
> justify the seizure.
>

> Your friend should (a) get a lawyer right away (b) buy new computers
> and restore the data from his backups.

I agree. Behave as if they were permanently lost. Buy replacement
equipment, recover what data is possible from backup, and carry on. In a
year or two he'll receive a peremptory demand to collect his property from
XYZ police station, where he'll be handed a partially-disassembled, damaged
and incomplete box of bits. There will be no apology or compensation.

I tend to agree with Ian that it's best to avoid any contact with the state
in such matters. Never report anything, and destroy any evidence or
materials which you come across. The state, and the Police in
particular, treat innocent people so badly in these situations that only a
fool would contact them.

[Percy Picacity]

What pray does indecency mean? Leaving aside children, what does
indecency mean in terms of an adult's image?

--

Percy Picacity

[Percy Picacity]

But do you look at the web sites of organisations that dislike
activities that are generally supposed to go on in London? And if so
are any of these organisations significantly unpopular with the secret
police?
--

Percy Picacity

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:20:10 +0000, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <Zn2ts.563627$9D6.1...@fx27.am4>, at 12:35:02 on Tue, 27
>Nov 2012, John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> remarked:

>>the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>
>Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>(and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18 year
>olds instead).

They certainly published topless photos of 17 year olds.

Sam Fox being probably the best known of those.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
One good turn gets most of the blanket.
To reply by email, my address is alexDOTheneyATgmailDOTcom

[Periander]

On 27-Nov-2012, J Bloggs <jblogg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you everyone for your advice. This isn't a child pornography
> case.

>
> This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of

> patents to his name. ...
>
> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
> He did not seek out indecent images of children, but can not say for
> certain there will not be any indecent images of children in his
> unsolicited mail / spam folders or pictures of children of his
> Facebook friends.

Not a big deal and if you're happy to take the word of someone with intimate
knowledge of this field of police practice and law (moi) it's not even close
to being one. The general if unspoken rule is "In the absence of additional
relevant information if (s)he has hair (the person in the image) or has
clearly shaved etc then forget it"

> Is there any way to hurry up the process as this friend needs his
> computers for work?

No, however in the light of what you descibe above and elsewhere your
friend's computers are going to be looked at very carefully, along with all
the storage media and written notes, this will be done at a government
facility rather than a private lab. In future your friend may wish to upload
his files (encrypted) to a cloud service, he can then get a clean computer
and download to it what he needs.

> When the police return the computers, will there be surveillance
> equipment or software installed in them?

Not installed by the police, however I have a very good long standing friend
who has dealings with the MOD. He's been subject to commercial espoinage on
at least 3 occassions and on at least one occassion this was with the
connivence of HM's Gvt who used one of his designs and got a competitor to
build it, paying him nothing in the process.

--

All the best,

Periander

[Periander]

On 27-Nov-2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> There's no reason for them to remove anything other than the hard disk,
> so that may have been deliberate sabotage.

Oh dear no.

Think about it for a moment or two before flying off the handle.

[Periander]

On 27-Nov-2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> I suppose that they will take this seriously enough to send the PC to
> GCHQ if he withholds the key.

It's inevitable in a case like this ... if the keys are withheld, the other
thing to consider is that GCHQ only do this work in their "downtime" that is
when they have spare capacity from their day jobs. If it goes to them it
will be a very, very lonng time before they've finished with them.

> Even after decryption, given the nature of this latest invention, I
> would doubt whether they will return it to him. (Any thoughts on that
> from the professional(s)?)

Without knowing the reason for siezure it's impossible to say. However if he
does end up in the "mad scientist" box rather than the "bloodthirsty
terrorist box" there's no reason why he shouldn't get his stuff back. We'd
have to see the case papers to offer more definative advice.

> > Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
> > it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
> > but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
> > and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
>

> Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
> legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
> see how a prosecution can succeed.

It's 18 but see my other post, unless there's good reason if (s)he has hair
then the authorities aren't interested.

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:05:02 +0000, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com>
wrote:

>On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
>>
>> This friend is a prolific inventor with a substantial number of

>> patents to his name. The police verbally advised him at the time of
>> presenting the warrant that the raid was triggered by a communication
>> he submitted to a contact in government about the possibility of
>> creating a very, very potent poison from a device that can be
>> assembled with consumer equipment, with a volume of no more than
>> 500mL. He had submitted the idea in good faith that the device needed
>> to be built, tested and the threat posed by its simplicity and

>> accessibility, quantified. Even he was not so stupid to try building
>> it at home - it would have required a lab with substantial toxic
>> hazard handling capabilities.

>
>I suppose that they will take this seriously enough to send the PC to
>GCHQ if he withholds the key.
>

>Even after decryption, given the nature of this latest invention, I
>would doubt whether they will return it to him. (Any thoughts on that
>from the professional(s)?)
>
>

>> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
>> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
>> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
>> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
>
>Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>see how a prosecution can succeed.
>

The relevant age is 18, and it is an offence if the indecent images of
a person who is or who "seems to be" under the age of 18.

Presumably one of the main reasons for the "or seems to be" being the
difficulty in proving an actual age.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager

Redundancy: A Politician with an airbag in his car.

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:45:02 +0000, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 11:05:02 on
>Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:

>>Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>>legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>>see how a prosecution can succeed.
>

>Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
>usually "are they pre-pubescent".

Not in UK court cases.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager

I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing!

[Martin]

On 27/11/2012 21:00, Roland Perry wrote:> In message

<737ts.518756$Bz2.3...@fx11.am4>, at 17:55:09 on Tue, 27
> Nov 2012, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> remarked:
>>> The police got all his backups. My friend might as well be starting
from
>>> scratch.
>>
>> In that case they weren't backups. Just spare copies.
>
> That's a bit glib. And it's only a matter of time before the police
> start seizing "in the cloud" backups.

Good luck to them with that. "Mr. Google, we want your drives that Mr.
O'Donnell has been using for his backups so we can inspect them"

> Most people regard a backup as
> something which assures against computer failure, and a few against a
> fire on the premises (backup in a fire safe). The number of people with
> physical off-site backups is tiny.

Sadly you are right

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:35:02 +0000, John Briggs
<john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

>On 27/11/2012 11:05, GB wrote:
>> On 27/11/2012 09:00, J Bloggs wrote:
>>>
>>> Unfortunately being male he does have porn on his computer and clearly
>>> it is not of old women (or young children). He did not seek out CP,
>>> but clearly the distinction between a woman aged 18 years and 1 day,
>>> and 17 years and 364 days, is not immediately apparent or advertised.
>>

>> Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>> legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>> see how a prosecution can succeed.
>

>No, the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.

Only if you think the images in them were indecent.

Given that you can see topless women on most beaches, even in the UK,
it seems likely that simple photos of topless women may not be
considered indecent.

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:40:03 +0000, "tim....."
<tims_n...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
>"Roland Perry" <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:KWBbXpNd...@perry.co.uk...
>> In message <Zn2ts.563627$9D6.1...@fx27.am4>, at 12:35:02 on Tue, 27 Nov
>> 2012, John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> remarked:

>>>the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>>

>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds (and
>> by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18 year olds
>> instead).
>

>Isn't the determination whether a picture of a 16 years old is indecent,
>different to the determination whether a picture of a 18 years old is
>indecent?

No.

The only difference in law is hat it is legal to make or possess
indecent images of 16 & 17 year old children if at the time the child
and the person making/possessing the images:
(a)were married, or
(b)lived together as partners in an enduring family relationship.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager

COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 20:25:01 +0000, Percy Picacity
<k...@under.the.invalid> wrote:

>On 2012-11-27 14:20:10 +0000, Roland Perry said:
>
>> In message <Zn2ts.563627$9D6.1...@fx27.am4>, at 12:35:02 on Tue, 27
>> Nov 2012, John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> remarked:
>>> the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>>
>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>> (and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18 year
>> olds instead).
>

>Are you saying this is in doubt? Or is the purpose of nakedness purely
>anthropological? There may be some hypocrisy in the popular view that
>sexual attractiveness is only permitted with a culturally acceptable
>level of clothing. Or 'indecency' may be a remarkably difficult
>concept to pin down.

The latter is the case.

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager

Diplomacy is saying "nice doggy" until you find a rock.

[Alex Heney]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:25:02 +0000, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted
>>In message <1NUWV4H+...@obviously.invalid>, at 09:45:04 on Tue, 27
>>Nov 2012, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com> remarked:
>>>Without wishing to point out the obvious, though, it will be hard to
>>>show that the files contain indecent images of children unless they
>>>can be decrypted.
>>
>>There could be traffic data available that shows where they came from,
>>which might be strong circumstantial evidence.
>
>If that traffic data evidence is strong enough to show beyond reasonable
>doubt that the files were indecent images of children, then the police
>do not need to decrypt the files. If it isn't, then it won't be strong
>enough to disprove his defence of having forgotten the keys either.
>
>For contrary to what the Janitor said earlier, that defence does *not*
>require "pretty cogent evidence" to support it, it merely requires that
>the defendant "raises the issue" (I think that's the wording in RIPA).
>

It isn't as simple as that. What the law says is:

===================================================
(3) For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have
shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information
at a particular time if—
(a)sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with
respect to it; and
(b)the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
===================================================

--
Alex Heney, Global Villager

Only those who do nothing make no mistakes.

[Periander]

(Apologies for the post that had to be moderated, for the record I was not
attempting to make the suggestion hinted at in the rejection notice. On the
plus side I've got to insert the paragraph I most wanted to include and
omitted from the first draft)
> yet. Doubtless Periander will allege that it would amount to PCJ,
What can I say? Is this the turning point and you are at last acknowledging
that I am both better informed and better read than yourself in these
matters? I have to say that I very much respect your decision to step
forward at last bury the hatchet.
But if you'll forgive me for pointing out the obvious you appear to have
gone of on a tangent down one of your favorite paths, that is images of
children being raped and sexually abused. All very interesting I'm sure but
of no interest to the OP and with the best will in the world although there
are some physical mechanisms in common between using technical means in the
hunt for child abusers and those who would aid and abet them compared to the
position the OP's friend finds himself in the aim of the investigation is as
different as chalk and cheese. With the best will in the world and I say
this genuinely not wishing to cause offence or impute anything whatsoever
other than the plain meaning of the words I use, you do tend to give the
impression of being to quick to accept the explanations of those who've
fallen foul of the laws designed to protect children from sexual abuse.
I fear that that in the specific context of this thread you're simply
confusing the issue. Perhaps in a very well meaning way, but even so since
your post kicking off this tangent 3/4s of the posts have followed you and
offered nothing to the OP except scare him that his friend is about to be
nicked for images of child abuse. Not helpful in the circumstances as we can
now see that he has far more important and pressing things to consider.
The other point to consider is that the OPs friend has by the account of the
OP done nothing wrong. That his main concern is to get his devices and media
back again as soon as possible. Think about it for a minute, advising
strategies that slow down the investigation and show's the OP in a bad light
are going to help him get his material back quickly how? In the
circumstances described by the OP cooperation is the name of the game, no
we're not saying he has to prove his innocence or anything of this ilk we're
saying that by cooperating he gets what he wants. Full marks to his lawyer
for giving what appears to be very good advice and providing an account in
interview. That's a couple of weeks he's saved right there.
Anyway and as an aside, now we've decided to bury the hatchet you may find
that you have the time to revisit the "Libel" thread. If you remember we'd
just got to the point where you were about to explain the contradictions in
the points you'd raised.

[Szymon von Ulezalka]

> Unfortunately, the police seized ALL backups. Data of the order of
> tens of TB were seized - 1000's of DVDs and many hard drives.

>
> How would you suggest that backups be kept in the future?

keep tapes in safe place (in different building)? this is not only "in
case of Police" but also- in case of fire, robbery, flood etc.

[Szymon von Ulezalka]

> They want the actual disk, not copies.  Among other reasons they
> want to be able to search for deleted files that wouldn't show up
> on a copy.

yes if you would do an image of the whole disk/partitions/device.
that's the way they work with them anyway- they do copies, and test
everything on them (so they wont screw up everything)

[Janitor of Lunacy]

"Alex Heney" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2bkab891ejlutoqff...@4ax.com...

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:25:02 +0000, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted
>>In message <1NUWV4H+...@obviously.invalid>, at 09:45:04 on Tue, 27
>>Nov 2012, Big Les Wade <L...@nowhere.com> remarked:
>>>Without wishing to point out the obvious, though, it will be hard to
>>>show that the files contain indecent images of children unless they
>>>can be decrypted.
>>
>>There could be traffic data available that shows where they came from,
>>which might be strong circumstantial evidence.
>
>If that traffic data evidence is strong enough to show beyond reasonable
>doubt that the files were indecent images of children, then the police
>do not need to decrypt the files. If it isn't, then it won't be strong
>enough to disprove his defence of having forgotten the keys either.
>
>For contrary to what the Janitor said earlier, that defence does *not*
>require "pretty cogent evidence" to support it, it merely requires that
>the defendant "raises the issue" (I think that's the wording in RIPA).
>

It isn't as simple as that. What the law says is:

===================================================
(3) For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have
shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information

at a particular time if-

(a)sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with
respect to it; and
(b)the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
===================================================
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Only those who do nothing make no mistakes.
To reply by email, my address is alexDOTheneyATgmailDOTcom

Which is more or less what I intended to mean by "pretty cogent evidence".
The defendant must provide "sufficient evidence to raise the issue", not
just "raise the issue" and the prosecution must rebut that evidence, but
only on the balance of probabilities.
So it's not probably not just enough for a defendant to assert (in the
particular case) that he's forgotten or no longer has the keys; that
evidence will be subject to cross-examination, and the defendant's
credibility comes into play.

[Robin Bignall]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 22:50:02 +0000, "Zapp Brannigan" <ZBr...@DOOP.com>
wrote:

I agree, after watching two policemen committing quite vicious perjury
in 1971.
Yet someone, in an earlier post, said that most solicitors would
recommend that their clients talk to the police.

I found these two videos fascinating.
"In a brilliant pair of videos, , Prof. James Duane of the Regent
University School of Law and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach
Police Department present a forceful case for never, ever, ever speaking
to the police without your lawyer present. Ever. Never, never, never."

Not ever, says the cop, and they both show that even if you are
completely innocent, your words can still get you convicted.
http://boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html
--
Robin Bignall
Herts, England

[Robin Bignall]

That site doesn't seem to play them.
Try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik the law professor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE the cop

[Roger Dewhurst]

On Nov 28, 12:45 am, Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <50b49dfb$0$7325$5b6aa...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 11:05:02 on
> Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTsome...@microsoft.com> remarked:

>
> >Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
> >legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
> >see how a prosecution can succeed.
>

> Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
> usually "are they pre-pubescent".

> --
> Roland Perry

A woman of 18 who has shaved her crotch may look pre-
pubescent!!!!!!!!!!

[Mark Goodge]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2012 20:50:02 +0000, Stuart A. Bronstein put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>Mark Goodge <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>The one time my computers & equipment were siezed (in a civil
>>>dispute, nothing to do with child porn), the warrant (from the
>>>Court of Session) required me to surrender all backups, wherever
>>>located.
>>
>> But by that do they mean "provide them with a copy" or "provide
>> them with a copy and delete them from their current location"?

>
>They want the actual disk, not copies. Among other reasons they
>want to be able to search for deleted files that wouldn't show up
>on a copy.

Yes, that makes sense on a forensic level. But it still makes the basic
assumption that backups exist on accessible, physical disks.

>> If the police wanted a copy of my backups then it would be
>> relatively simple to give them access to them. But I can't hand
>> over the physical disks on which they reside, not least because
>> I only have the vaguest idea where they actually are and they're
>> not mine to hand over anyway.
>
>Then you should inform them of who owns that equipment, and they
>will seek access from them if they choose to.

There would be interesting legal ramifications there, since seizing the
disks would also mean obtaining the data of many other, entirely unrelated
people.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

[Roland Perry]

In message <6505e5....@news.alt.net>, at 22:50:09 on Tue, 27 Nov

2012, Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> remarked:

>> Indecency is not a synonym for titillating.
>
>What pray does indecency mean? Leaving aside children, what does
>indecency mean in terms of an adult's image?

Most of the time it would involve participating in an activity that was
regarded as indecent (and I don't mean that as a way of avoiding the
question). Being portrayed penetrating an animal might be an extreme
example.
--
Roland Perry

[The Todal]

On 27/11/12 18:45, Big Les Wade wrote:
> Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted

>> In message <ahk1ef...@mid.individual.net>, at 14:40:03 on Tue, 27
>> Nov 2012, tim..... <tims_n...@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:

>>>>> the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>>>>
>>>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>>>> (and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18
>>>> year olds instead).
>>>

>>> Isn't the determination whether a picture of a 16 years old is
>>> indecent, different to the determination whether a picture of a 18
>>> years old is indecent?
>>

>> I would not have thought so. Indecency is about the pose, rather than
>> the age.
>
> [at the risk of this being moderated out, as it was last time I
> corrected you on this] There is nothing in either statute or case law
> to support this statement. Indecency is not defined in law.
>

But I can understand the point he is making. The picture is unlawful if
it is an indecent photograph of a child. If the photograph is of a
child, one limb of the case is proved. To decide "indecency" one has to
look at what can be seen in the photograph which in broad terms is the
pose, if "pose" means how much of the photo is occupied by the child's
private parts, whether the camera is aiming up a dress, whether the
child is bending over. I agree that none of these aspects are defined,
and the jury has to look at the photograph and decide whether or not it
is indecent, applying its common sense. If a jury has decided that a
photograph is indecent it would be extremely difficult, perhaps
impossible, to appeal against such a finding.

[Roland Perry]

In message
<a8c90564-4957-4629...@k6g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>, at
00:30:03 on Wed, 28 Nov 2012, Szymon von Ulezalka
<sz.grus...@gmail.com> remarked:

Although in the past I've been assured by Usenet contributors that the
police have an example of every possible one, it must slow them down if
the HDDs are attached to a RAID controller. The RAID controller on my
"domestic" (non-work) PC is in software.
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message <uggbb8dphsvpl069i...@news.markshouse.net>, at
08:00:03 on Wed, 28 Nov 2012, Mark Goodge
<use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> remarked:

>>> If the police wanted a copy of my backups then it would be
>>> relatively simple to give them access to them. But I can't hand
>>> over the physical disks on which they reside, not least because
>>> I only have the vaguest idea where they actually are and they're
>>> not mine to hand over anyway.
>>
>>Then you should inform them of who owns that equipment, and they
>>will seek access from them if they choose to.
>
>There would be interesting legal ramifications there, since seizing the
>disks would also mean obtaining the data of many other, entirely unrelated
>people.

Everything gets very complicated once you are in the cloud.

What about my Facebook postings, are they part of "my data"; is my
Facebook albums (which can be marked as "Only me" [access]) in fact also
a backup of my photo library? You can't go round seizing Facebook's HDDs
for lots of reasons, the distributed nature of their storage system
being as big an obstacle as the legal ones.

What you might be able to do is ask a cloud provider if they can access
deleted data (Facebook hangs onto some things for a while after you've
deleted them), but that would be from the "virtual drives", not the
physical ones.
--
Roland Perry

[Periander]

On 28-Nov-2012, Robin Bignall <docr...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Yet someone, in an earlier post, said that most solicitors would
> recommend that their clients talk to the police.

Yup that was me

> I found these two videos fascinating.
> "In a brilliant pair of videos, , Prof. James Duane of the Regent
> University School of Law and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach
> Police Department present a forceful case for never, ever, ever speaking
> to the police without your lawyer present. Ever. Never, never, never."

And you point is? Neither of the two say don't speak with the police they
say don't speak with the police unless you have a lawyer present.

I remember the debates on uk.legal when this video first surfaced and I
remember folks then making some really quite fundamental misinterpretations
then. Just to re-cap although a lot of American criminal law is based on
what is now ancient British common law there are fundamental differences
today in the way in which our respective laws work. In this context the
major differences are the way an interviewed person's silence is handled. In
the UK a person is perfectly free to remain silent however in many cases
that silence can be used against him, not just in the case of "special
warnings" but in almost all cases. This can be very damaging ...

"You didn't say that when the police asked you that question, in fact you
said nothing, since then you've gone away, had a words with your friends and
concocted a tale that fits the facts, isn't that the case?"

But even more than that is the means, methods and circumstances under which
a person can be questioned. In just about al US jurisdictions there is no
equivalent of PACE. A person taken to the police station not under arrest
under US law is not given the same rights as a person taken to the police
station in the UK. US police are free to question a suspect to their hearts
content in circumstances that would e simply impermissible in the UK. There
is no duty to disclose to a US lawyer as there is to a UK one and so forth
...

The thing is "one size doesn't fit all" and it would be better considering
that this is a UK group concerned with UK law to seek out and use UK
examples rather than attempt to translate an alien example and attempt to
apply it to UK law.

[The Todal]

On 27/11/12 22:50, Percy Picacity wrote:
> On 2012-11-27 21:00:11 +0000, Roland Perry said:
>
>> In message <64vss3....@news.alt.net>, at 20:25:01 on Tue, 27 Nov
>> 2012, Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> remarked:

>>>>> the relevant age is 18 - thus rendering old copies of The Sun illegal.
>>>> Only if the Sun used to publish indecent pictures of 16-17 year olds
>>>> (and by implication might now be publishing indecent photos of 18
>>>> year olds instead).
>>>

>>> Are you saying this is in doubt? Or is the purpose of nakedness
>>> purely anthropological? There may be some hypocrisy in the popular
>>> view that sexual attractiveness is only permitted with a culturally
>>> acceptable level of clothing. Or 'indecency' may be a remarkably
>>> difficult concept to pin down.
>>

>> Indecency is not a synonym for titillating.
>
> What pray does indecency mean? Leaving aside children, what does
> indecency mean in terms of an adult's image?
>

Your question is an important one. I don't think "indecency" has ever
been properly defined.

In 1965 the Court of Criminal Appeal said, in a case called R. v
Stanley, that the words "indecent" and "obscene" convey one idea,
namely, offending against the recognised standards of propriety,
indecency being at the lower, and obscenity at the upper, end of the
scale. An indecent article is not necessarily obscene, but an obscene
article is almost certainly indecent.

It is always up to the jury to decide whether a photograph is indecent
and I must say until now I was under the impression that they were
expected to apply their own notion of propriety rather than what they
believe other people might feel. But to my surprise, I find that in R. v
Neal it was said that the jury has to apply an objective standard, not a
subjective standard. As I read that, it means that the juror must say
"okay, it isn't indecent to my eyes, but when I think about what my gran
and my headmaster and my vicar would think if they looked at this
picture, I ought to say it's indecent".

see
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/461.html

(the pictures were David Hamilton erotica)

As was set out in agreed facts at the trial, those books are available
for purchase in store or on-line from one or more major retail outlets
such as WH Smith, Waterstones, Tesco and Amazon. One of the images in
count 3 also appears as the front cover of another published book by
Sally Mann, "Immediate Family", a copy of which was also seized from the
appellant's home but which did not form the basis of a separate charge.
The same photograph appeared in an article in The Guardian newspaper in
May 2010 and was published in the on-line edition of that newspaper.

snip

In his directions to the jury, in the course of setting out the
ingredients to the offences, the Recorder said this:

"In the case of each offence alleged in counts 1 to 5 it is for the
prosecution to prove that the photographs in question are indecent and
that you may think is the allegation which is at the heart of this case.

As you have rightly been told by counsel it is for you to determine
whether the photograph in question is indecent. In determining this
point you are entitled to consider whether the photograph in question
would be thought to be indecent by right-thinking people.

snip

In granting leave the single judge expressed the view that those two
passages, taken together, failed to make clear to the jury that they
were to apply the recognised objective standard of right-thinking
people, not their own subjective view.

snip

The submission by Miss Bramwell, and the concession by Mr Gray, are in
our judgment rightly made. Whilst the jury are representative of the
public, and (as it was put in Stamford at page 399C) "are themselves, so
to speak, the custodians of the standards for the time being", it
remains essential that they consider the question of indecency by
reference to recognised standards of propriety, an objective test,
rather than applying their wholly subjective views to the matter. That
is all the more important where one is considering photographs in books
that are widely available through respectable retail outlets and may in
consequence be on the bookshelves of many ordinary members of the community.

[Roland Perry]

In message <50b53cc9$0$10738$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 22:25:02 on
Tue, 27 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:
>> I recently bought a 0.5TB NAS and was a tad disappointed to discover
>> that filling it up at the maximum data rate it's specified, takes about
>> three days (24x7).
>>
>> All it has on it is some of the other backups I've taken over the years
>> (maybe a tenth of them). I'd hate to think how long it would take to
>> upload a TB, or how many people have a "truly unlimited" Internet
>> package that would allow it.
>
>I back up 16GB daily (on-site). A lot of that is quite old stuff, and I
>could manage perfectly well without it. So, a 5GB backup in the cloud
>would easily hold all I really need.
>
>Do you really need *all* your photos?

I keep all the negatives from the old days, so I'm not sure why I'd
start throwing away digital photos. The cost of the storage is
negligible[1], and I never know when I might want to flick through them.

Most of the "out takes" will have been deleted from the camera as soon
as I took them, and the ones I'm keeping is not that many actual photos,
given that they average 2MB each, and span the last 15 years.

What takes up much more space is the digitised versions of some of the
home movies I took (on VHS) in the 80's and 90's. They are at least
2GB/hour.

[1] Although slow, that 500GB NAS only cost me £30 on eBay and a decent
4GB DVD-R is only about 20p (so both are about 1/100p per photo).
--
Roland Perry

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 22:55, Percy Picacity wrote:

>> I think that we have half a dozen A-Zs.
>
> But do you look at the web sites of organisations that dislike
> activities that are generally supposed to go on in London?

I am a fully paid-up member of the Anti-Theatre League. I also totally
oppose the X Factor and Big Brother.


> And if so
> are any of these organisations significantly unpopular with the secret
> police?

I suspect that they are popular.

[GB]

On 27/11/2012 22:35, Periander wrote:
> On 27-Nov-2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>> There's no reason for them to remove anything other than the hard disk,
>> so that may have been deliberate sabotage.
>
> Oh dear no.
>
> Think about it for a moment or two before flying off the handle.
>

I'm not flying off the handle. I'm absolutely on the ground, grasping
the handle firmly.

I just couldn't see any other explanation for why the police might
need to remove the power connector to the motherboard. I always prefer
the non-conspiracy explanation, so please enlighten me.

BTW, I am going on the basis that the HDD is removed and copied, and the
forensic analysis is done on the copy.

[Roland Perry]

In message
<a0e0af18-f3bd-48b3...@n5g2000vbk.googlegroups.com>, at
14:10:03 on Tue, 27 Nov 2012, Man at B&Q <manat...@hotmail.com>
remarked:
>> I think that he's implying that there are two types of men. Those with
>> porn on their hard drives, and those who are meticulous about deleting it.
>
>That comment is no better.

There's certainly a meme in TV drama that the police finding a man's PC
without any porn on it are immediately suspicious that it might not
actually be the one he normally uses, instead being some kind of
diversionary tactic).

In most cases they will of course be able to look for deleted files
(once again the names can be as incriminating as the contents).
--
Roland Perry

[John Briggs]

Well, in the circumstances, sheer stupidity is the simplest (and most
likely) explanation.
--
John Briggs

[Roland Perry]

In message <50b5e23b$0$10734$5b6a...@news.zen.co.uk>, at 10:10:09 on
Wed, 28 Nov 2012, GB <NOTso...@microsoft.com> remarked:

>I just couldn't see any other explanation for why the police might
>need to remove the power connector to the motherboard. I always prefer
>the non-conspiracy explanation, so please enlighten me.

They are told not to power up the computer, in case it auto-deletes
things (or whatever).

Perhaps their method of cloning the drives is to leave the drives in the
chassis, powered from the seized computer's PSU, but removing the
motherboard power connection so the "computer" bit of it is turned off.

Now, I realise if they've detached the data cables from the HDDs (to
clone them) then the motherboard couldn't in fact alter the data already
on the HDD, but doing things by rote sometimes means it's "the hard
way".
--
Roland Perry

[Roland Perry]

In message
<d0343457-6128-4e56...@uc4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>, at
02:30:02 on Wed, 28 Nov 2012, Roger Dewhurst <dewhurs...@gmail.com>

remarked:
>> >Is the relevant age 16, actually? If the models are around about the
>> >legal age, I cannot see how their exact age can be proven, so I don't
>> >see how a prosecution can succeed.
>>
>> Unless the subject of the photo can be found, the practical test is
>> usually "are they pre-pubescent".
>

>A woman of 18 who has shaved her crotch may look pre-
>pubescent!!!!!!!!!!

That's not the only part of the body they are looking at.
--
Roland Perry

[Big Les Wade]

Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> posted

>There's certainly a meme in TV drama that the police finding a man's PC
>without any porn on it are immediately suspicious that it might not
>actually be the one he normally uses, instead being some kind of
>diversionary tactic).

Yet there must be a significant number of men who do not have porn on
their computers, because it is known that a significant number of men
are not interested in porn (at least, not since their teenage years).

Unless it is true (as I have heard some people suggest) that *all*
computers have porn on them, as an inevitable side-effect of being
connected to the Net. Others no doubt dismiss this theory as mere
self-justification by child molesters and their abetters.

--
Les

[Martin Bonner]

On Tuesday, November 27, 2012 10:40:01 PM UTC, the Omrud wrote:
> My internet backup service holds about 120GB of my data. I've no
> idea where although I have a vague notion that it might be in
> California.

These days, people are moving their big data centres away from
California - one of the biggest costs is cooling, so they build
in cold (or at least, cool) places instead.

[Martin Bonner]

On Tuesday, November 27, 2012 11:55:02 PM UTC, Alex Heney wrote:
> It isn't as simple as that. What the law says is:
>
> ===================================================
> (3) For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have
> shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information
> at a particular time if—
> (a)sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with
> respect to it; and
> (b)the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
> ===================================================
>

But 3a can be met by the defendant saying in evidence "I have
forgotten the keys". It is *not* enough for the defendant's
lawyer to say "he has probably forgotten the keys" (that isn't
evidence).