What do you do when the FBI raids your home and finds porn all over your PC? One man, who had his home computer seized by the bureau, has decided that his best course of action is to sue the companies that failed to keep that data private for him.
But when the FBI raided his house on an arms charge, they took his computer and with a little bit of tech savvy (cloning the drive) were able to have full access to his drive.
Simply amazing... If you don't do the research to find out about free tools that truly encrypt your drive (TrueCrypt) and you are doing illegal activities and you are relying on others for your security information then you deserve to be taken in.
Ars
The Inquirer
TechDirt
2 comments:
I resent that you call anyone who doesn't know personal computer encryption do's and don'ts as stupid. I certainly would have no idea how to encrypt information that could stand up to the techies at the FBI. Granted, I'm not hiding bomb-making instructions in my hardrive but still--I think it's important to point out the difference between intelligence and knowledge. I am an intelligent person but I lack some of the technological knowledge that many students in this class possess. Most of the people I know, who are tech-savvy in so far as they can use email and upload videos to YouTube, are terrified of computer/programming themed classes because frankly, this stuff is intimidating and far more obtuse to the average joe than people who are TRULY tech-savvy seem to realize.
A good comparison is the Intelligent Design-Evolution/Natural Selection "debate." Most scientists and advocates of Natural Selection dismiss Intelligent Design-ists as ignorant, never taking the time to explain, in language those people can understand, the flaws in their thinking. Consequently, no progress is made and the two sides are further polarized, which creates the illusion of a "debate" with two competing (and potentially equal) "sides."
Similarly, writing off a person who doesn't know as much about encryption technology as you do, won't help the nobel cause of bringing your precious tech knowledge to the masses. The link helps...but how is taking your advice about an encryption site any better than taking the advice of the dude at Circuit City?
No, that *is* stupidy and just plain ignorance of common sense.
If you have physical access to your computer and you think that someone else who also has physical access to it won't be able to discover information on it, then you aren't using the part of your brain allocated to conscious thought.
Oh, and clearly, you've never been to Curcuit City...
Post a Comment