funsec mailing list archives
Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery
From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:31:07 -0400
On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:00:20 CDT, Dennis Henderson said:
The random blank in a firing squad cannot even compare to the ticking time bomb scenario.
In both cases, you have to (in some way) come to terms with what you're doing.
A firing squad is an administrative task, not a preventive task. You're not asking someone on a firing squad to perform a task to save themselves or humanity. I can't believe this comparison would even be considered.
OK, so knowing that even delivering a relatively quick and painless death is stressful enough for most people that they're provided a possibility that they had the blank round so they can rationalize it all, you don't think that it's going to be even *more* stressful to torture somebody?
If you knew that someone had the combination to the stop button and that not knowing it would mean that you or your family would die, you better be "fucked up" enough to get the job done and get the information. Otherwise you will be (fucked up).
The problem is that it doesn't work out that way. As one of the comments to the article I cited says: "The TTB hypothetical assumes that the suspect has information sufficient to defuse the bomb, and that she will provide that information when tortured. It is at least as probable that a guilty suspect will, instead, provide false information intended (a) to stop the torture for the time being and (b) to send the torturers on a wild-goose chase long enough to allow the bomb to explode. The calculus looks something like this: 1. If she provides information that allows the torturers to defuse the bomb, her plot fails, she'll probably be tortured about other terror plots anyway, and she's guaranteed to spend the rest of her miserable life in prison. 2. If she refuses to provide the information, her plot succeeds, she'll probably be viciously tortured and quite possibly killed in revenge, and she's guaranteed to spend the rest of her (short and miserable) life in prison. Given these consequences, it's not at all clear that torture is more likely to cause a guilty suspect to divulge the information than is morally-directed non-torture-based interrogation. # posted by Tonal Crow : 3:30 PM" Remember - if the guy you're torturing *has* the useful information, they *also* know that they just have to hold out until 5:03PM Tuesday. Torture is *notoriously* unreliable as a method of extracting correct factual information. It's *much* better at coercing a person to agree to some result you previously wanted. How many of the people the Spanish Inquisition tortured were *really* guilty, and how many just cracked and agreed to anything the torturer wanted? How many of our soldiers in Vietnam cracked and divulged secret info, and how many just cracked and "confessed" for a Viet Cong photo op?
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Current thread:
- Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Richard M. Smith (Oct 19)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Fergie (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Blue Boar (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Rob Thompson (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 19)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Dennis Henderson (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 20)
- Fwd: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Dennis Henderson (Oct 20)
- Re: Idaho Killer Holds Encryption Key to Laptop Mystery Brian Loe (Oct 20)