If The Cops Ask, Give 'Em Your Password

A 19-year old male in Liverpool England took the admonition to keep his password a secret a step too far. When police seized his computer in a child sexual exploitation investigation, Oliver Drage refused to provide them with his password. His 50 character encrypted password prevented police from accessing the suspected material on his computer.

Refusing to disclose his password is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Detective Sargent Neil Fowler said: "The legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime. It sends a robust message out to those intent on trying to mask their online criminal activities that they will be taken before the courts with the ultimate sanction, as in this case, being a custodial sentence."

Drage was sentenced at Preston Crown Court and will be serving time at the Young Offenders Institution. In the meantime, police are still trying to crack the code so they can examine the contents of his computer. Perhaps Drage has a future in Britain’s MI5 or the CIA in the US. Sadly, this proves that British Police isn't using GPGPU-accelerated password crackers from companies such as ElcomSoft. At 50-120,000 passwords a second, it would not take too long to break into the system of the imprisoned child "pimp".