[mdlug] Password of DEATH

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2012-06-05 at 12:11 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Adam Tauno Williams
> <awilliam at whitemice.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2012-06-05 at 01:21 -0400, Garry Stahl wrote:
> >> OK, the gob'ment has sezied yoir laptop and is holding you hostage for
> >> the password.  Now you don't have anthung on there really.  (I don't)
> >> Nothing critical or irreplacalbe, but dammit, it's none of their business.
> >> Suggestion, a second password that if entered goes nuclear on the hard
> >> drive deleting the thing wholesale without further action.  Better yet
> >> it boots to a croot jail screen while deleting eveything in the Home
> >> partition (You do have a separate home partition, right)
> >> Is this doable with ah average Linux distro?
> > Yes, trivially
> > And it would probably be prosecuted as obstruction of justice;  the
> > concept of spoilation almost certainly applies
> > In short - THIS WOULD BE A VERY *VERY* **STUPID** THING TO DO
> Commanded, almost assuredly. As a passive, automated process? I'm not
> sure; it'd probably have to be tested in court.

If the laptop is personal property you are probably correct.  If the
laptop is the property of a company [or was purchased by a company] then
I don't see how the concept of spoilation doesn't apply; personal
property and the property of a commercial entity are different.  A
'process' is just as much spoilation as a an 'act' [ and an 'act' always
involves some kind of 'process' ].  It also depends if the data will be
used in a civil or criminal process.  As for border crossings and
security checkpoints I have no idea where those fall in the
civil/criminal scale; but I know they have broad authority and I
wouldn't want to do anything to make myself more interesting.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://mdlug.org/pipermail/mdlug/attachments/20120606/6e9768bc/attachment-0001.sig>