How Long to Crack an 'Encrypted' HD? 733
brainburger asks: "In the UK, Tony Blair has recently lost a parliametary vote to allow the police to hold terrorist suspects for 90 days without trial. One of the justifications the police gave for the extension from 14 days to 90 days was that they need the extra 76 days to decrypt the computer hard-drives of suspects. This has been seen by some as the only compelling reason to allow 90 days. The time-limit has been extended to 28 days instead, but Tony Blair insists 90 days is required. Are there really any encryption systems that cannot be cracked in 28 days, but which can be cracked in 90? Aside from the not-much-discussed issue that the police can no longer interrogate a suspect after they are charged, I suspect the police meant unencrypted machines. What do you think?"
Before you answer (Score:5, Funny)
The Police... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Police... (Score:4, Funny)
I doubt it - he was an English teacher, not a maths teacher.
-- Steve
Re:Before you answer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Very good point :-)). But surely the terrorist are not stupid and if they know that the detention period would be now 90 days, then they'll use longer keys, encrypt things a few times, etc. hence bringing the time to decrypt the hard drive to something more like 1 year.
Would we then be prepared to support detention for one year without a charge?!? I know I won't. The police simply has to work around the hard drive encryption, when collecting evidence.
Probably more like: (Score:4, Interesting)
90 days won't give them enough time to crack the key, but it will make you think really hard about giving them the passphrase so they let you go.
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Informative)
Even so, the US Govt considers 256 bit AES to be good enough for "Top Secret" documents so I doubt it's crackable in 90 days.
Actually no, they recommend using AES 256 for govn't sensitive, but unclassified data [nist.gov]. For anything classified, they are using classified military algorithms.
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Interesting)
"CNSSP-15 correctly states that 192-bit AES keys are sufficient for protecting even TOPSECRET information. However, Suite B uses only 256-bit keys to enhance interoperability." -- http://www.nsa.gov/ia/industry/crypto_suite_b.cfm
Re:Before you answer (Score:4, Informative)
They don't need to do that. Over here, refusing to reveal an encryption key when required by the Police is an offence in itself.
RIP Act 2000 [guardian.co.uk]
Re:Before you answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, except if they can arrest you and try you and convict you for this, they will have longer than the 90 days to try and decrypt your data, and then convict you for the first offence.
Gives an easy way out for the child porn rings: two years for not revealing keys versus God knows how much for dealing in child porn.
This is about suspected terrorists. It has nothing to do with child porn.
Re:Before you answer (Score:5, Interesting)
The police in the UK have far too much power as it is. Of all the democratic countries in the world we're the closest to a police state. Tony Bliar even had police chiefs lobbying on his behalf for this 90 day detention (see many of today's UK newspapers)! Police are not supposed to be involved with politics!
To give you an idea of the power they already have. I was walking home a couple of months ago. Two policeman pulled over and arrested me. The reason? I was wearing similar clothes to a burglar. Apparently fawn is a very unusual colour for a suit (it was bought from Marks & Spencer so yeah really rare). I was locked up. Because I had been arrested, the police are allowed to search my home WITHOUT A WARRANT! My wife was in the bath, heard a noise and discovered 3 policeman in our hallway. This was the first she'd heard of my arrest.
I was finally released (and my trousers returned!) when a detective sergeant decided I couldn't possibly have done it. I was, as I had told all the officers I encountered, in a meeting in another town with 10 other people and all of us have security clearance!
The police have far too many powers already! They should be cut back, not extended.
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Sucks to have it happen to you, but how should arrests based on descriptions work otherwise? "Hey, you look like the description of the burgler/mugger/ect. We will send you a le
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Before you answer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a BIG difference between being questioned and being arrested and having your house searched unexpectedly without a warrant with your wife, presumably naked, in the bath
Re:Before you answer (Score:5, Funny)
Even in a democratic country, fawn-coloured suits should be illegal.
Re:Before you answer (Score:3, Informative)
How about Safehouse? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kris
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
But really, the problem is that the police don't like to release their suspects before they're sure they're not guilty of something. Even if the drives couldn't be copied without decrypting them first, the police could just take the hardware and release it when they're ready, but release the suspect quickly. But they don't want to do that -- he could be a terrorist! (or he could be totally innocent, but of course police don't make that sort of mistake.)
Though personally I think the 90 days thing is just a crock. It's also obviously just those pesky civil rights that are keeping law enforcement from turning this world into a paradise without crime, terrorism or software piracy overnight -- or at least that's sometimes how they seem to act.
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
This time was referring to habeas corpus.
Basically when Tony Blair came to power it was 7 days. He raised it to 14, now 28 but he still wants 90 days.
This is the period of time the police are legally allowed to hold you with no evidence whatsoever that you've done anything wrong, just because they suspect you might have. It's a period of time where the police can hold you while look for evidence. Once they find the smallest amount of evidence they can then charge you and then can keep looking for evidence.
This bill's meant to allow the police to break any encryption so that they would now be able to pick people up they suspect of terrorism and detain them until they've broken every encrypted file on their computer on the off chance that they'll find evidence that way when they can't find any other evidence whatsoever.
3 entire wasted months of your life dragged away from your job (which probably won't be there when you return) and your family while they break your PGP encrypted emails to your girlfriend on the off chance the two of you are discussing how to blow up parliament.
As an example: Check this story out [guardian.co.uk]. This journalist hadn't actually done anything, and they released him after a day. They did during that time confiscate his computer equipment.
If this had been raised to 90 days it's entirely possible he'd have been held for 90 days while they decrypted anything they found on his hard drives.
After the 90 days are up they would still have released him. And they would not even have to explain why he'd been locked up, because he'd never been charged.
The bill has too major flaws.
1) There's nothing really to stop the power being abused by police who don't like the look of someone or have a grudge against them, which is exactly what it is designed to prevent. You do require the judges permission keep them for that long, but it's not too hard to create a case of why you suspect someone.
2) This odd 90 days which the Police told Tony Blair that they can break any encryption in. They can't - it's impossible!
- There'll be multiple encrypted files, particularly if they are encrypting their communications (guilty or not guilty). Each one would need 90 days.
- They'll not know the encryption algorithm in all cases, so would need to try every one. Each one would need 90 days.
- There are HUNDREDS of encryption algorithms that use such large keys that you can't realistically expect to crack the password in 90 years, let alone 90 days. There are a few around that even with all the supercomputers in the world working it won't have tried every key before the universe ends. And it's still possible to take one and write your own with an even longer key. (The details of which would be secret so they couldn't crack it in the first place anyway).
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, even better than that: Just because they suspect you maybe will.
And this a country which is a part of a coalition trying to "bring democracy" to others.
--paulj
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:3, Informative)
Tell that to the octagenerian who was detained under the previous Act for heckling at the recent Labour party conference. Or the woman in Scotland detained for several hours for *walking* down a cycle path.
it would bring many lawsuits
Don't think so, the whole point is to make it *legal*.
so theoretically, government officials reflect the will of the people in policy making.
Re:Easy way out (Score:3, Informative)
I hope you don't really believe that.
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:3)
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.truecrypt.org/ [truecrypt.org]
Encrypted disks, crossplatform (win/lin).
Re:How about Safehouse? (Score:3, Informative)
I have been burned before: I will never use a closed source software again for data encryption. The tinfoil hat crowd will worry about the possible NSA backdoor or weak implementation. More practically, I worry about the developer going out of business and the next windows update breaking my encryption software, leaving me high and dry with no other recourse but to downgrade or reinstall my system, get my data back, and s
No more AES (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No more AES (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, for law enforcement etc, my entire home folder is now encrypted with AES128 encryption. Yep, all my email, all my documents, all my application preferences, even my entire MP3 music library (except that I went to lengths to not have this encrypted by symlinking it to somewhere else) is now A
Re:No more AES (Score:3, Insightful)
One point about encryption is that you should encrypt everything. Otherwise you are saying to any evesdropper "A is important, B is trivia
Re:Encryption mostly overrated (Score:3, Informative)
My take on the subject (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need time to crack the hard drive YOU FUCKING TAKE THE HARD DRIVE!. Why do you need to hold the person for 90 days when you can simply take his hard drive and hold it for as long as you want. Look at the Scott Peterson case. They came and took his car, and pretty much emptied his house and held it for over a year while he was awaiting trial. Which brings
Pardon the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if he knows you'll find something on his hard drive once you decrypt it, he may decide to disappear during the 90 days it takes you to find it, whereas if you can keep in custody until you finish he wont have that opportunity?
Re:Pardon the obvious... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pardon the obvious... (Score:5, Funny)
If I had mod points I'd mod you off-topic. That's not a comment on you, it's a comment on what the world is becoming.
Re:Pardon the obvious... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Insightful)
So why? Is it because he is a muslim? Because the police have a funny feeling? Because they are dark skinned on a sunny day?
If you have any evidence at all you can charge him and bag him. Judges don't really stand in the way of muslims going to jail in the US do they?
Computer power (Score:5, Insightful)
Guessing a passphrase is believable, though. That might take large-but-feasible computer resources. English text has only one point something bits of entropy per character on the usual estimate. Who has a sixty-character passphrase?
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My take on the subject (Score:3, Interesting)
Every hoop that the police must jump though will save us all from harrassment.
LK
With enough time and money... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily. If you REALLY wanted to hide something on your hard drive, it'd be cakewalk for anyone really determined. Just get a 256 bit encryption system put on there (nearly impossible to 'brute force' with simple computing power due to the sheer number of possibilities).
On top of that you can hide messages in thousands of different possible files on the computer. It could be anywhere; a driver, a PC save game file, the user name and password for someone MMO account spelt backwards, it could be in plain sight on the desktop except its a code-word phrase that only the (presumably) terrorist knows. And thats on top of the encryption so the code breaking geeks can't even being working on this until the computers are done. Hiding data on a computer these days is a joke for anyone willing to spend the time and effort.
"Brute forcing" encryptions is a thing of the past. Contrary to popular belief, hardware has not necessarily kept up with software, as many high-end computer graphics designers will attest to. (Imagine today's top of the line computers trying to real-time render the orc's attack on Helm's Deep with all the fancy graphics, special AI and fancy camera work all going on at the same time.)
Re:With enough time and money... (Score:3)
Kjella
Re:Why MOD down? (Score:3, Interesting)
Plain and Simple, anything that is not going to be handled in under 2 weeks, will not be handled in the next 90 days, or 90 year years. So arguing that you need 90 days to try and decrypt is false. The only thing that could be argued is that the cops do not have the time to process what they have so they need a longer time. Well, if that is the case, than more CPU power is what is needed.
My suggestion to you (most likely IFWM), is th
Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, that might almost work...
mostly analysis, I suspect (Score:3, Interesting)
Mmm...I suspect the issue isn't "cracking"; I think the story poster was hinting at this with the last sentence or two. Chances are "crack" is being used liberally to present it using "terms" something Joe Q Legislator and John Z Public can understand. I would bet it is mostly analysis (or as you put it, "sift through".) Chances are serious criminal investigation units already have custom (ie distributed to
Re:Decrypt ~and~ analyze (Score:3, Insightful)
So now it's "Guilty unless proven innocent?" If they don't have the evidence to charge you, you shouldn't be held in jail. Period. A major pillar of the legal system is that you can't assume someone is guilty unless you actually have the evidence to back it up. Tearing down rights left and right to stop terrorism accomplishes exactly what the terrorists want.
Are they insane?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Retired senior judge Gerald Butler states: "The mere fact a threat is "completely different" is, of itself, no justification for an extension in the detention laws. But it is true we face a new and terrifying threat in this country."
Not politically motivated?!
What on earth are these people talking about? Good gried, "GET OUT THE MIDDLE EAST, WEST!" sounds _very_ political to me! "STOP MESSING IN OUR AFFAIRS", sounds political to me!
These attacks are completely and totally politically motivated.
The militants in the Middle East, right or wrong, is ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, and TOTALLY in the middle of a political struggle with the West.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
No
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you will find plenty of reasonable people advocating the position that multiculturalism does not work, leads to conflict, and in the case of N. Africans leads to a good deal of crime as well.
I can fully understand Arabs & Muslims not wanting us in their countries, just as easily as I can understand large number in the US not wanting the invasion of Mexicans & Haitians we have, or people in France not wanting the invasion of Africans they have.
After people get done shouting "racist", "xenophobe", "blah blah blah"
It isn't a problem if the people coming over are prepared to assimilate into that culture, speak a common language, share basic cultural values. But when you get large numbers that do not share those values, will not assimilate, will not speak a common language - you end up effectively with two disparate peoples trying to share a single state. If it goes on long enough, you usually see two state solutions offered, and its rarely a peaceful transition to that point.
Given history, I find nothing unreasonable in the arguement that France and French people may be unwilling to continue the current course: to abandon their cities endlessly and watch them turn into the equivalent of Detroit, and to face a civil war down the road which likely splits the state.
I think the government lacks the backbone to bring real solutions to this problem to the table and will return to appeasement rather quickly, but it is the real issue and not the immediate economic issues. Their only way out of this may well be a very radically different immigration policy, and deporting those who are unwilling & unable to assimilate and become productive members of the society and culture they have.
The cost for multicultural experiements which don't pan out is quite high indeed.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, I would like to see these examples of civilisations ruined by multi-culturalism. In the past most countries insisted on any immigrants adopting their own rules, for example Europe in the middle ages with their pogroms against Jews, medieval Spain under the second wave of Moors then fundamentalist Catholics, Rome where all non-Romans were not citizens, medieval England where Catholics were forced to pray in Anglican churches under threat of fines or ex
xenophobia is insightful now?? (Score:3, Insightful)
What data? You aren't offering any d
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
That has NOTHING to do with anything. No "terrorist" has said "all white folk please leave". They want us to stop messing around in their POLICAL AFFAIRS. They want us to stop toppling democracies and replacing them with puppet governments, who we then arm and support as they carry out their war crimes. In Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other states (not just in the middle east), we have backed the "bad guy" whenever it is deem
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's not how you end up at all - that
It's The Economy Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the riots in France are not motivated on religious grounds. The riots are as a result of huge economic disadvantage, exploitation and unemployment in those communities which are rioting. This has come about because of racism and bigotry in France, not because of religion. The majority of the rioters are not even religious.
The Muslims are not rioting. The poor are rioting. Quite a lot of people will try and distract you from this fact, especially in France, where the poor rioting has a long and well documented history of toppling governments.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes! All the things the Christian Fundamentalists also want to ban.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not politically motivated?!
The politician that acknowledges that terrorists are politically motivated would be accepting responsibility for provoking violent retaliation. Much better for their careers if terrorists are portrayed as driven by some kind of insane freedom-hating bloodlust. This way they're more like earthquakes, and who can stop earthquakes? No one.
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Are they insane?! (Score:3, Interesting)
What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Funny)
Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably, but since encrypted hard drives usually involve a passphrase being converted into a key of suitable length by one-way hash algorithms, why not crack the passphrase instead of the actual key? Even with 256-bit AES (or something like it), a weak passphrase-based key is probably one of the easier ways to go after the data. Of course, if the suspect carries their completely random key around on a USB drive of some sort, that's a different matter.
Re:Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could mod you up. Very true. This is something I've thought about. Let's say I'm using GPG or something like that. If the Feds come after my files and I've got my secret key lying around on my computer, or even somewhere easy to find, I think it'd be much easier just to crack the passphrase -- because really, there are common things a lot of people do for passwords. Replacing letters by numbers, adding #, !, @, alternating upper-lower case, etc. In the end, for most people, the password is something that is easy to remember, because if it's not, you're either going to have to have a great memory, or write it down somewhere. With this in mind, wouldn't cracking the passphrase be feasible in a smaller amount of time than if it were just brute forced? I honestly don't know -- I'm largely ignorant in that area, but it intrigues me nonetheless.
(I am aware, for the record, that brute forcing a password of any real length... e.g. even 6 or 7 chars long... requires an extraordinary amount of combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols... but if we can group those combinations into smaller units, don't we reduce the number?)
Mike.
Re:Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:3, Informative)
No. 6 or 7 characters * 8bit/char = 48-56 bits at most. Because so many special signs are hard to reach, you can usually get away with 6bit, so 36-42 bits. That is insufficient to prevent any serious brute force attempt. A stron
Re:Cracking passphrase-based keys (Score:3, Interesting)
Started trying some obvious phrases that didn't work, then pulled his IE cache and used some of those. Then went "Holy Sh*t".
C
The answer is.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The answer is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The answer is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Back to the question: "How Long to Crack an 'Encrypted' HD?": it all depends on how well it is done. It also depends on where the disk key is stored. It is easier to crack a drive if the key is kept on the drive or left up to lazy humans to type in each time.
I'm not kidding about the last point.
Better question? (Score:5, Funny)
They don't need much time at CTU! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They don't need much time at CTU! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:5, Interesting)
The United Kingon approaches counter-terrorism as part of a criminal investigation and has to deal with due process of law. Hence the debate over extending detention from 14 days to 90 days.
The United States approaches counter-terrorism as military action and the President signs an executive order that allows for indefinite detainment of suspects.
Fascinating. The UK has much more experience dealing with domestic terrorism -- did they originally overreact as well or are the two circumstances different from the get-go?
Re: I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:4, Insightful)
> and the President signs an executive order that allows for indefinite detainment of suspects.
It's a sad day when executive orders trump the constitution.
Did The UK Overreact In The Past? (Score:3, Interesting)
If we reach out beyond the UK proper, and look at how the British dealt with insurgents in Kenya, Malaysia, and southern Yemen, they largely went the
Re:I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:5, Informative)
Such detention is not allowed in the US.
In case you're not being sarcastic, you might be shocked to read about Jose Padilla [chargepadilla.org].
Re:I'm amazed at how the UK is handling this (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you're not being sarcastic, you might be shocked to read about Jose Padilla
You may be shocked to hear that, sometimes, Bush's government (well every government, really) does things that it knows are illegal.
DMCA? (Score:3, Funny)
I know I'm probably missing some technicality, but it's a fun thought argument.
This sounds like a bogus excuse (Score:5, Informative)
Hold on. Anyone remember the Regulation of Investigatory Powers 2000 [wikipedia.org] Act? Isn't it an offence - punishable by a prison sentence - to not hand over encryption keys? If they need to crack it, they can just tell the suspect to hand over his key(s). If he/she doesn't, he goes down for more than 90 days anyway ...
Re:This sounds like a bogus excuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, not necessarily.
From the wiki:
Failing to provide the key is a criminal offence, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail. The accused must prove that they do not have the key, claiming to have mislaid or forgotten it might not be accepted as a defence. Both the innocent and the guilty would be caught in that condition, the guilty because they would rather serve two years than ten or more. Additionally those under investigation may not tell anyone except their attorney they are being investigated, under threat of five years imprisonment. This last is the newly coined offense of "tipping off".
This is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Encryption key? What encryption key? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I lost the thumbdrive about a week ago on the way home from work.
Sorry.
Re:Encryption key? What encryption key? (Score:3, Funny)
lorcha: Oh, you mean this encryption key.
The longer the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I'm outright against this and any other attempt to make a police state. If you lock a guy up for 3 months you've pretty much taken his job away from him, maybe his house (if renting) and rumours spread fast, so good luck getting hired againa as a "possible terrorist". The reason the vote was against it is because it would ruin people's lives if this were to be brought upon them.
Combined methods are the best solution (Score:5, Funny)
I am currently working on the next-gen encryption system that will handle binary files better than ROT13 (yes, I know it's hard to believe). This new system will use the same encryption concepts on the entire WORD. I call this system ROTl33tn00b, or R0t3n for short. When I have my code (pure VB6) finished I will release it to the community under GNU/GPL.
When encryption is outlawed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just fishing for the amusing title, but in the (pretty large number of) posts I've looked at so far, no one has made the obvious observation that if the "terrorists" are actually concerned about being held some number of days, then they can just increase the level of encryption they use to make sure that it will take longer than that to decrypt their drives. There is no upper limit on the amount of encryption you use. For the police to claim that they need any fixed number of days is totally bogus, and the British police are just making excuses because they want to hold suspects for longer time periods. Heck, if having a HDD is the excuse for being held longer, then all the smart criminals will simply get rid of their computers. Of course that's on the theory that the amount of time the police are holding them has anything to do with whatever criminal action they might be planning.
In conclusion, I would guess that the stupid TV show called "24" must also be shown in Great Britain.
Real life is not like that. Before arresting someone, the police are supposed to already have some concrete and substantive basis for suspecting the person has committed a crime, or even stronger evidence that the person is really in the process of planning to commit a crime. The basis that "We think we'll find something AFTER we decrypt the HDD" is totally bogus. The reality here is they just want to quietly lean on the suspects for a longer time, and saying they need that much time because of HDD encryption is just a cheap--and stupid--excuse.
Having said that, I'm surprised the politicians weren't stupid enough to go along with the gag. That already puts them ahead of most American politicians. Can you try to imagine explaining HDD encryption to Dubya?
While we're talking about HDs (Score:4, Insightful)
A good terrorist never encrypts (Score:3, Insightful)
The notion that terrorists stroll around with all their details encrypted on a laptop PC is completely false anyway. A good terrorist cell would have been trained ruthlessly to avoid such an obvious compromise and organized so that it had no information to retain or pass on anway. What they need to know would be a few fleeting instructions on a job by job basis. The most successful terrorist outfit of modern times, the Irish Republic Army, did not become viciously successful by using computers, FFS. Computers weren't even around for most of its active history. And such evidence as there is suggests that many terrorist operations have been coordinated on the basis of using throw-away mobile phones on a one-off basis.
Short Answer: No (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you cannot decrypt a hard disk in 90 days (assuming the use of strong encryption). If you find you're using Rijndael or Serepent, you're good. However, in the period of 90 days, you're more likely to experience a psychological break due to duress (like torture). Most people could handle 14 days, but not 90. Once you break, you'll be more than happy to hand over your keys.
To clarify the difference of 14 and 90 days in detainment, consider the following. Those detaining have had a couple periods on which to deprive the detainee of food and water to the point of going critical without actually killing you. Once someone become dependent on their captors for essentials like food and water, they become loyal. They have also had the opportunity to deprive the person of sleep for a solid 12 or more days, which can drive most people close to the point of insanity. Also, the textbook technique for "breaking" someone where captors inflict physical pain then "rescue" the person from it requires several iterations. 14 days just simply is not enough to accomplish these things. 90 would suffice.
And let me also point out that this is how the United States government operates these days. It would be reasonable to assume some of our closest allies are engaged in similar activities with "terror suspects".
Re:Dupe (Score:3, Informative)
this article states that he didnt get what he wanted.
quite different if u ask me...and somewhat interesting
Re:They're welcome to try it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They're welcome to try it (Score:3, Interesting)
cat Recording1.mp3 + echo "Password One" + cat Recording2.m
Re:Whatever it is... (Score:3, Funny)