Ask Slashdot: P2P Liability On a Shared Connection? 346
An anonymous reader writes "I have a roommate that insists on using BitTorrent without taking any kind of precautions. He has an affinity for downloading material that is extremely popular and high-risk. He's received a warning from a well-known media giant in the past about his file sharing, but hasn't been sued. We've recently begun living in an apartment together (with one other person) and share our Internet connection and IP address. If his p2p activity leads to someone attempting to take legal action, could I be held liable? How would our accusers differentiate between our computers if we all share the same IP address? Would they just sue the lot of us?" Some lawyers would certainly like to get a look at everything on the other side of the connection. Has anyone out there faced legal problems as a result of someone else's use of your connection?
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Re:Throw as much mud as they can (Score:4)
If you are renting would the landlord be targetted?
If the plaintiffs thought they had a chance of prevailing ... absolutely. Similarly, if they thought it would work, they'd also sue your ISP, computer manufacturer, parents, doctor and fifth grade teacher.
(Do they have a chance? Got me.)
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Depends on who made the agreement with the ISP.
Of course, intimidating a plaintiff into settling usually works pretty well too.
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Presumably they would just try and sue whoever they can. Chuck a couple of letters out to whoever lives there and see who caves or settles first.
If you are renting would the landlord be targetted?
No, because the landlord's name isn't on the cable bill. You expect the MAFIAA to research their case? It's whomever set up the account with the ISP that's fucked.
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I agree, from my experience in my own legal disputes and hearing about others basically when you are suing about something you sue everyone involved and let the courts and evidence shown in them decide who actually gets to foot the bill.
Whos name is the internet account in? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The idea that the owner of a piece of equipment is liable for someone else's unauthorized use of it, simply won't fly. Some states have done that exclusively in the case of automobiles, but their legal authority to do even that is on pretty thin grounds.
If somebody, without my permission, uses my internet connection to do something illegitimate, there is no law making me liable or responsible for their actions.
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I think "liable" does not mean what you think it means. It doesn't mean you did it. It means you can plausibly be blamed for it. If you are aware that your roommate is engaging in infringing activities using your Internet connection, and you don't do anything to stop it, then it is just naive to think that you won't be found liable. If you want to be protected from this, move, and do not let your "friend" bring computers to your new apartment.
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"You are giving the same definition as mellon but acting like you are contradicting him."
No, mellon was trying to contradict ME, when mellon was in fact wrong about my understanding of the word "liable". And to be honest, I am not sure mellon truly understands what it means, or he would not have used the word "blame", which is completely irrelevant to liability.
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But you're describing a different case. He's clearly sharing the connection intentionally, which authorizes the usage. His response needs to be to cut off his roommate if the connection is in his name.
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They are sharing the connection. By definition, that makes the other person an authorized user.
If the OP were to lock down the router, and refuse to give his roommate the password, then maybe he wouldn't have a problem. Of course, then they wouldn't be sharing the connection any more.
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"there is no law makingÂ*me*Âliable or responsible for their actions"
Yes, there is. Due diligence they call it
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The TOS can require you to indemnify the ISP if *they* get sued.
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If you don't want to stand up for your own rights, at least get the hell out of the way and let other people do it.
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Yeah? How much would YOU like to donate to the legal fees?
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I dunno, but I'd donate a lot more if loser-pays could make sure I got my money back if my beneficiary is innocent.
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I used to believe in loser-pays, but here's where it falls down.
Giant movie studio sues you. You're completely in the right, but perhaps due to a technicality, an idiot jury, or "the winds of fate," the decision goes against you.
Your legal fees were 5-10K or so. The movie studio points to its team of 85 lawyers all billing at $1K an hour for the last six months.
Kinda makes you long for simple student loan debt...
Put infringers name on ISP contract/account (Score:2)
That kind of attitude is EXACTLY what lets them get away with this intimidation and harassment bullshit. If you don't want to stand up for your own rights, at least get the hell out of the way and let other people do it.
Absolutely. Take your name off the ISP contract/account and let the copyright infringer put their name on the ISP contract/account. That is what you are advocating isn't it?
Re:Whos name is the internet account in? (Score:4, Funny)
Myself, I don't associate very closely with lawbreakers.
You must be unemployed.
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Generally, there is a way to deal with this in a technological fashion:
Use a smart router and block all P2P sites. Let the people whom are doing the illegal file exchanging know that the sites are blocked... but VPNs are not, and point them to a P2P friendly VPS.
Problem solved -- These days, people should be using encrypting proxies for anything and everything they don't want to be personally accountable for anyway.
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If someone breaks into my house and steals a gun from me, I am not liable for their subsequent use of that gun. If they murder somebody with it, it's their problem, not mine.
Otherwise, it's blaming the victim for the crime... which is 100% against the legal principles of this country.
Authorized in some de facto sense? (Score:3)
You glaringly left out: authorized use.
Given that the owner of the account is aware of the copyright infringement and not doing anything to stop it there probably is a legal argument that he is authorizing that conduct in some de facto sense.
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I guess you don't actually watch "The Simpsons". It has clever/sophisticated humor along with a lot of dumb humor.
Re:Whos name is the internet account in? (Score:4, Insightful)
"It is reasonable that the owner of the internet connection had a duty of care to protect others from financial harm by his connection."
I think you have a pretty funny definition of "reasonable". How much difficulty should one have to go through, for example, to prevent someone from stealing your car and running over his ex-wife? If you leave the keys in the car, are you liable? How about an alarm with a combination lock? Would you count that as reasonable?
But wait... many people could not afford to have those put on their old cars, or know how to do it themselves. So is it actually reasonable?
But you are saying that somebody should be compelled to use advanced encryption technology in order to block the remote possibility that a neighbor would "borrow" the equipment, and cause the loss of A FEW PENNIES of profit to some company in a far-off state???
"Reasonable", my lily white ass.
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"IN the cases above they are not foreseeable."
I disagree. It is very much foreseeable that if you leave your keys in your car, it could be stolen. And courts have, in fact, ruled at times that people who left their keys in the car could have foreseen the outcome and shared liability for the consequences.
The problem here is in the word "reasonable". What is a "reasonable" duty of care?
If it isn't "reasonable" to demand that people have at least combination-lock security on their cars to prevent the remote possibility of unnecessary DEATHS, then it
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In contrast, everybody knows how to work a combination lock on a car.
And I don't see a darned thing wrong with the car analogy. Or rather, not analogy, but comparison. Because before you can judge what is "reasonable" or not, you also have to take into account the relative damage that might be done.
A stolen car can cause injury and death. A usurped wifi conne
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And setting policies is very good advice, for any commercial -- or even private -- shared arrangement.
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That's assuming they are already splitting the internet bill. If not, then throw a password on that thing and be happy.
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But that applies ONLY to automobiles, and as I said before, that concept is on pretty shaky legal grounds.
yes. they wouldnt. yes. (Score:5, Informative)
this is not legal advice and i may be a lawyer in your state but am not your lawyer and do not represent you.
1. If they take legal action you could be sued and held liable. the burden of proof is 1% - i.e. if you are found even 1% liable you could be held liable, even if it was for a trifling amount. its preponderance of the evidence in a civil matter i.e if they show it is more than 51% likely that you were responsible for the 1% liability you are liable.
2. your accusers would ask for discovery and depending on the judge and state you would have to give up your computers for them to poke around or use a 3rd party lab to poke around for signs of infringement.
3. Yes they would likely sue everyone in the household who owned a computer.
Does it really matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not saying that they don't sometimes get away with it, but what they are actually doing in those situations is ILLEGAL.
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Tax evasion is illegal in many if not most states, yet it continues to happen on a daily basis.
What's your point?
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it won't happen. If reality really worked that way then Earth becomes a crime-free paradise instantly.
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Of course, they can do that even without anyone using Bittorrent.
Tell your roommate (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems your roommate insists, against your objections, to do things that are illegal, and bound to get you into expensive trouble, without taking any precautions. If the shit hits the fan, you have no obligation at all to support him in any way; your only responsibility is to get out of trouble yourself as cheaply as possible.
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Kicking him out would be responsible. I do assume he owns the apartment and if not then leave and get a new place.
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Liable to the ISP, not 3rd parties. So if the ISP gets sued, they can in turn come after you.
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Do people really think blacklists and whitelists and other stupid filtering protocols are going to save them? As if the AA associations can't buy or borrow a billion IP addresses outside their corporate blocks?
Only extreme measures like a VPN through a foreign country give you *any* trustworthy protection, and never forget that absolutely nothing will *ever* protect you absolutely.
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The OP never said that he doesn't download illegal things himself, but suggested that he wouldn't do so without protection.
I.e. using his roommate's computer as a proxy.
Simple... (Score:5, Informative)
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Or make him use a VPN [vpnuk.net] that's in his name.
Plausable deniability. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Plausable deniability. (Score:4, Insightful)
Run a Tor exit node and open up a guest wireless connection that anyone can use.
"Plausible deniability" doesn't have the same meaning to the middle aged, middle class, judge or juror as it does to the eternerally adolescent P2P geek.
Often it translates simply as "Who does that jerk think he is kidding?"
I live west of a state park that closes at sunset. To the east more greenspace. If late night downloads to this IP address are time-stamped the culprit almost certainly has to be me.
One strike... (Score:2)
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They were bullying you. Nothing more. Nothing less. And you fell for it.
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But next time they can say "oh, this guy again" and jump straight to the part where he gets sued. Even if someone else did it it's going to take time, effort, money and lawyers to sort it out.
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Log NAT Translations (Score:3)
This in addition to truthfully answering lawyers' questions should cover your ass plenty sufficiently.
Get a new roommate. (Score:2)
Let's rephrase the question.
The answer is, "Get a new roommate. Your current one is not respecting you, as evidenced by his disregard for your wishes and the way he's exposing you to potentially massive legal fees. You need to be able to trust your roommate, and you apparently can't trust your current one. Finding a new roommate might be hard, bu
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Absolutely. Or cut off their physical access (wired access only, tied to mac address and port number, with the switch in a locked area, authentication required to connect so if he unplugs your cable into his machine and spoofs your address, he still can't use it.
And while you're at it, make sure you don't download anything questionable either. The time you're wasting watching that "must-watch" show/move could be used doing something more interesting.
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Let's rephrase the question.
The answer is, "Get a new roommate. Your current one is not respecting you, as evidenced by his disregard for your wishes and the way he's exposing you to potentially massive legal fees. You need to be able to trust your roommate, and you apparently can't trust your current one. Finding a new roommate might be hard, but it's necessary. Good luck!"
With respect to the legal question you've raised, the only answer here is "talk to a real lawyer." Trusting Slashdot to give you legal counsel is, TBH, just flat-out crazy.
Exactly. What if your roommate were running a meth lab or had a child pornography studio set up in his room? Yes, these are more serious crimes, but the principle is the same. If you are aware that your roommate is engaging in illegal activity that could get you into trouble, it would be prudent to either stop the activity or get a new roommate. You wouldn't give it a second thought if it were one of the more serious crimes listed above.
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. Follow them or I will call 911 and have you sent to federal prison.
FTFY
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I think you're underestimating the importance of a potential loss of potential profit. We must go to any means to identify the true perpetrator (even if that means busting into someone's house and confiscating every single computer)! It's so worth it, don't you think?
Two possible solutions... (Score:3)
Technical: Block the standard ports for bittorrent at your router and tell him it's your ISP doing it. Change the password to the router and say the ISP did that remotely because of new T&Cs too. If he's such a low-watt bulb that he doesn't know to download and use PeerBlock or Blocklist Manager, it'd be a stretch to think he'd be able to unravel that cunningly crafted web of deceit.
Manly: Cut him loose. He couldn't give two shits about how his behaviour affects you. You could be a pussy about it and hope you find a conveniently non-confrontational legal loophole so you never have to take any form of stand against his irresponsibility. Or you could relocate your balls and tell him to take a hike because you're not going to be liable for his douchebaggery.
Your choice.
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Is it worth worrying about? (Score:2)
Really, is the risk of getting the attention of the copyright/lawsuit industry significantly higher than the risk of, say, him going crazy and murdering you in your sleep or you getting hit by lightning while crossing the street? How many other people are sharing those same extremely popular files as your mate, and how many of them are getting caught?
In short, is it worth worrying about at all?
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Kick ass. (Score:2)
He has an affinity for downloading material that is extremely popular and high-risk.
Who owns the primary Internet account? Who holds the lease on the apartment? Who is the head of household? The responsible adult here?
If the answer to any of those questions is you, you have a problem, but you also - quite literally - hold the key to the solution. You can tell your roomate to stop and you can make it stick.
"High risk" suggests many possibilities. If your roomate is trading in hard core porn over your shared connection, a raid by the ICE or FBI is not out of the question.
You do not wan
Easy, tell them not to ... (Score:2)
... and block P2P traffic.
My roommate blew up when I did that.
Then he noticed that our uselessly slow Internet connection was actually amazingly fast when it wasn't being hammered by improperly configured P2P clients.
Then peace returned.
The main gist of your problems (Score:2)
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The main gist of this guy's problem is that he's moved in with an asshole with no concern for his roommates.
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Not a Technical or Legal Question (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a technical or legal question. It is a question about relationships. I'll take a stab, but, seriously, it does not belong on Slashdot. It belongs on some advice column.
As I understand it, you have a roommate who partakes in risky behavior that you have requested he stop. He does not agree to your request. It seems therefore that you need a new roommate since you do not wish to expose yourself to any potential risk and -- this is the important part -- you and he do not have sufficiently compatible lifestyles. You need a new living situation, whether that be by leaving and finding a new apartment on your own, or kicking this fellow out.
Any other discussions about relative liability or that include technological solutions, while potentially fascinating, are completely and utterly missing the point. This is not a technical or legal problem: it is a problem about relationships.
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Ask your roommate "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR WOULD YOU?!!!" He will then see the error of his ways and stop downloading.
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@pz's post is spot on. It doesn't matter if the two of them are boinking or not. Ultimately, the original post is trying to avoid hassle. What s/he may not (yet) realize is that if anyone in the apartment is party to a file sharing legal action, everyone in the unit is. So, this person needs to weigh the hassle of physically removing one or the other person from the domicile (and, potentially, a relationship) v. the hassle of participating in a legal action.
Were it me, there would have to be a significant,
Separate Internet connection (Score:3)
I don't know what agreements you have in place, but if the Internet connection is in your name, then I would not allow anyone else to connect that you cannot trust.
If the Internet connection is in your troublesome roommate's name, I would get your own Internet connection. This may be difficult, but most places have at least 2-3 ISP options (DSL, Cable, Clear, etc.). It's too bad you probably can't get two public IPs for your connection and each have your own router for your devices behind it.
I think paying for your own Internet (or not having your roommate chip in or having to give them a discount for their share of the Internet you are not going to share) is more than worth it.
When (not if, it will happen eventually unless the laws are changed) your roommate ends up in court and should you somehow get named, your defense will be easy. You never connected to his Internet and have your own. Produce your bills as proof, and that's the end of the story for you.
I think the advice that someone else gave about keeping logs of where the connection went is a good idea at first thought - and I'm not lawyer - but that sounds kinda shady - you kept logs to prove it wasn't you? How do you prove there wasn't any editing or that you only ever used that one IP? Just sounds like you could have audit problems proving things since you would have access to the logging system. To have it be bulletproof, you need to have some third-party setting up that system without you having access to it.
Mod Parent Up: Most sensible idea yet (Score:2)
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Cable modems authenticate by MAC address hanging two off a coax splitter would be quite practical
stop it/get out (Score:4, Insightful)
a lot of people are taking the view that "hey it's his problem".
have you considered the possibility that when the shit hits the fan, this roommate will turn around and say it is YOU who did it? can you prove it isn't you? because i guarantee you the other side won't care - as long as they get their pound of flesh. and even if you CAN prove it, it's gonna be a lot of pain and hassle. you'd better start documenting how/what/why it is that it's NOT you who's downloading it now, because you're gonna get caught in the trawler and trawling is damn well what the other side is doing, it's not precision strikes.
In Denmark & Sweden you'd get busted (Score:3)
In Denmark & Sweden you'd get busted as this has happened before, and they've set an example in order to get people to really secure their WiFi routers in their homes.
Say, you have an open network, the old excuse...but...It wasn't me - officer, simply won't hold up in court, you're liable for anything that goes trough your router, your cable, your network.
What's even worse, is that some politicians in Denmark are these days discussing to forbid anonymous surfing.
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Absolutely,
Something totally OT, but relevant to the subject of paradise & freedom, I used to live in Denmark where there is/was some kind of degree of freedom, at least when it comes to free speech, then I moved to Sweden, and guess what - certain drawn porn can get you arrested and thrown in jail for 2 years over here in Sweden.
We just had a case-example on TV, a young MANGA interpreter that converts Japanese text to Swedish, just got arrested and fined for child porn as some of the Japanese manga ser
law vs tos (Score:2)
You are only responsible for his activities if it's criminal liability and you somehow aided and abetted in his actions, either through lending actual assistance, covering him up, or failing to report if you have a duty to do so.
The bar for civil liability is even higher since often you don't have a duty to police your connection from misuse by others.
That said, however, the TOS from your service provider might have a joint and several liability clause that you are forced to agree to in the event that one o
Get a seedbox (Score:2)
Think about your friendship. (Score:3)
Consider this scenario. Your friend illegally downloads copyrighted material--and you have full knowledge. Your friend is sued.
You are subpoenaed.
Are you going to lie for his ass?
Are you going to tell the truth and burn your friendship?
Add a complicator: You are sued also (but you are innocent).
Ask the two questions again. Further ask yourself: How are you going to defend yourself without fucking your friend over?
Present this scenario to your friend. Maybe it will wake his selfish sorry ass up.
who owns the connection? (Score:3)
They are first in line to be sued.
Also, the actions of your roommate could bring down the man on ALL of you, and you get all your stuff confiscated and have to defend yourself in court.
Not much different if he had drugs mailed to the house, you are all in trouble when the postal service finds out..
strip it right back to basics (Score:2)
The responses to this are a whole lot of hot air and legal advice from non-lawyers. The issue is far, far simpler if we just strip it right back to basics.
Q/ My roommate pulls shit is going to cause both of us hassle someday. I've asked him to stop, but he's a being a dick about it. What should I do?
A/ Get a new roommate.
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We are all guilty on their internets.
Thank you for that confession on behalf of all Anonymous Cowards. I'll use your confession in my own defense against every kind of accusation, should it ever become necessary:
Me: "Your honor, that AC already admitted his guilt, so there is no case for me to answer..."
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Right !
And make sure you have a full hard disk encryption ! -> http://www.truecrypt.org/ [truecrypt.org]
And make sure you have your tier1 data some where else and also encrypted (SDHC 32GB or 1,8" SSD sounds good or ?).
I prefer saving my data encrypted on a datasette .. ;)
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What good would full hard disk encryption do against a copyright lawsuit? The judge would order you to decrypt the data, and you'd be obligated to oblige or be found in contempt of court and put in jail (the right to not incriminate yourself is only for criminal cases and this would be a civil case.)
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"What good would full hard disk encryption do against a copyright lawsuit? The judge would order you to decrypt the data... "
No. The judge would not, because he has no legal power to do so. They can only do that when they ALREADY KNOW, beyond reasonable doubt, that there is illegal material in the encrypted data. They cannot force you to give up passwords or decrypt data for a mere fishing expedition or discovery.
Standard disclaimer: IANAL. But I do know something about this particular legal topic.
The only exception I am aware of so far in the US is one of a man who was going through customs while coming back into the Unite
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The standard for searches of property for criminal cases is found in the 4th amendment and is based upon probable cause.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is for conviction. Warrants have a lesser standard.
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"... the right to not incriminate yourself is only for criminal cases and this would be a civil case..."
Actually, this is not true (see the Wikipedia entry on 5th Amendment).
You still have the absolute right to remain silent, and to not implicate yourself. HOWEVER, there are 2 important things to remember about this: (1) some civil cases are treated like criminal cases in regard to the 5th Amendment, and (2) in those that don't while you can still plead the 5th, it can be considered to be evidence against you.
On the other hand, presumed evidence is generally not as
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I think you are absolutely right. In a Civil case negative inferences can be drawn from the fact that you refuse to decrypt the partition. Still, it's probably a good idea in any case. a) You may have a chance to negotiate the access to data on your computer so that it protects your privacy other than for the case in court; if the data is unencrypted that will probably happen too late. b) If your computer is swept up during searching for your friend's data but you aren't included in the case then you ma
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Doesn't work that way.
You are NEVER obliged to self incriminate, during any trial civil or criminal. They can interpret your silence however they want, but they cannot force you to speak up. You can ALWAYS plead the 5th, and if you do so, any testimony you give can't be used against you in a criminal trial. The issue is whether what you say can be used against you criminally.
As for the hard drive, it's not a 5th amendment issue anyway because self incrimination only applies to your person, not to propert
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If I had to give that key anywhere else but at my desk, at home, or with people around me, or under any form of threat, I would most likely have trouble remembering the key.
Hence the 'Anonymous Coward' posting on Slashdot.
Re:Whose name is the account under? (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realize that it wouldn't happen like on TV, right?
(as a side note, I am ignoring the differences between criminal and civil here. Most of it applies to both sides.)
If they've seized your computer, there will be a subpoena compelling you to provide the correct password. It's not like you'll be held in an interrogation with a cop saying "give me the password or else [blah, blah, blah]". It'll be a long, drawn out process. You'll learn the wonderful world of the legal process. Subpoenas, depositions, countless hearings, motions, and eventually you'll actually end up in the court room to testify about stuff.
"I'm stressed, I can't remember it" might (but probably) won't work on day one. By the time you end up in front of a judge, claiming that you can't remember the same password that you had to type every day to unlock your computer, he'll laugh at you, and then you can learn about "contempt of court".
The only thing you should say is "I have nothing to say without my attorney present". When asked questions that are irrelevant or argumentative, your attorney will say so and advise you not to answer. All in all, the more you say is bad. Refusing to do something, like give a password, is bad. Saying "I can't remember" is bad. Asking your attorney "should I answer?" is good. You have legal counsel, because you are not an attorney. Even if you are, you are directly and emotionally involved. Your attorney doesn't really care, except he/she is paid to protect your interests.
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If his illegal activity draws any heat, they will seize every computer in the house while they try to figure out whodunnit. Do you have anything on your computer that could incriminate you in any way? Are you sure? If not, and you do manage to avoid federal prosecution, you still might not ever get your stuff back.
You can prevent your computers from being seized by ratting on your roommate in this situation. And since he insisted, against your wishes, to keep downloading stuff illegally, you have no obligations towards him. (Of course he can try to claim it was you, but that would get him into very serious trouble when yours and his computers are examined. In England it would be called "perverting the course of justice" and is considerably worse than the copyright infringement. )