On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 04:30:42PM -0800, Tim May wrote: | On Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 12:49 PM, dmolnar wrote: | | >On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Tyler Durden wrote: | > | >>to have a big jpg of a hand with middle finger extended...) More than | >>this, | >>they will have unknowingly destroyed the real data. (Perhaps a 3rd | >>key is | >>needed that DOESN'T destroy the original data, just 'hides' it a la | >>Rubberhose.) | > | >The question I've seen asked about this is then -- how do you get them | >to | >stop beating you? If they know you might have some number of duress | >keys, | >one of which might undetectably hide the data, what stops them from | >beating you until | > | > 1) you give them a key that shows them what they want to see | > 2) you die | > | >Maybe this isn't that different from the ordinary unencrypted case, | >where | >if they don't find it on your HD they can accuse you of burying disks | >in | >the backyard or something. Or is the goal protecting the data and not | >protecting your life? | | From my reading of tradecraft, as practiced by SAVAK, MOSSAD, GRU, | etc., there is rarely anything to be gained by letting the target of | torture survive. If he or she survives, she screams to the newspapers, | "60 Minutes," etc.
There's also rarely anything to be gained from torture, as people will invent all sorts of crap to get out from physical pain. | The United States draws heavily on Israel for torture methods, as their | methods come from some of the best torturers the world has ever seen, | their teachers at Auschwitz and Berlin Central. The Russians, Americans and I believe others have moved from physical to psychological methods which have proven to work better than actual physical pain. I recall reading a story on Abdul Murad, the Al Qaeda member arrested in 1995 in the Philipines, where the way they finally got him to talk ws threatening him with being turned over to the Israelis. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001363 The Russians reputedly used sensory deprivation as a means of convincing western spies to talk. 24 to 48 hours in a tank broke nearly anyone. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
