Encryption Software can Equal Criminal Intent in Minnesota
May 25, 2005
5:44 a.m., MT

Yes, you read that right, but in case you doubt me, here's the c|net news story: Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption. First few paragraphs:

A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

Ari David Levie, who was convicted of photographing a nude 9-year-old girl, argued on appeal that the PGP encryption utility on his computer was irrelevant and should not have been admitted as evidence during his trial. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and is sold by PGP Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.

But the Minnesota appeals court ruled 3-0 that the trial judge was correct to let that information be used when handing down a guilty verdict.

"We find that evidence of appellant's Internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state's case against him," Judge R.A. Randall wrote in an opinion dated May 3.

Another notch in the criminalization of privacy-enabling tools. The only other interesting bit in the article is a mention of a cop's testimony on encryption:

Schaub testified that PGP "can basically encrypt any file" and "other than the National Security Agency," nobody could break it.

Uh, is there proof that the NSA spooks can break decent-sized PGP keys? Just curious for academic reasons, o'course.

Sunni

Replies: 3 people have spoken!

On Wednesday, May 25th, Anders Monsen said:

Mac OS X comes with pretty decent encryption software built in from the start. Does that make every Mac user in Minnesota a criminal? This verdit seems based on out-dated and paranoid thinking.

On Thursday, May 26th, Sunni said:

I didn't know that; thanks, Anders. It seems to me that most judges are pretty seriously behind the times, especially when it comes to technology.

On Thursday, May 26th, John said:

They may not be able to break it that easily. What they have done is gotten warrants to secretly install keystroke loggers on computers of "suspects" to get the passphrase.

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