Encryption

This article from Wired.com explains how all disk encryption is crackable if the cracker has access to the physical machine. Amazing.

Legally, this probably has huge ramifications: for those who remember the child porn case of a few months back where the police were unable to decrypt the man's drive without the encryption key, you have to wonder whether every police department in the country is going to start hiring crackers so deal with these kinds of issues. In that case, they had to bring him to court to litigate whether forcing him to divulge his key was considered compelled speech -- in the future, they won't have to bother.

Of course, when it comes to child porn, it's hard to find many who would object to police efforts to catch offenders. But as with all of the exclusionary rule doctrines, it's overbreadth that is the real concern -- we don't want innocent people's lives dragged through the fishing net as well.

Anyways, it's food for thought.