
Man jailed over Facebook password refusal - matthewowen
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-45365464
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dragontamer
Its important to remember that different countries have different customs,
even if we share a language.

In the USA, people have the right against self-incrimination, aka the 5th
Amendment ("Pleading the Fifth"). I'm not entirely sure if Britain affords the
same right to their citizens.

Ideally, this kind of article would have some analysis and background for the
American audience. Legally understanding the promises our governments make to
us citizens is important.

Anyway, its clear that self-incrimination is an issue, otherwise this wouldn't
be news at all. But I can't help but wonder that my ignorance of British law
is making me misunderstand an issue, or otherwise make me biased. In
particular, I know that British citizens have a completely different
relationship with their Police force compared to US Citizens with our police
force. (Ex: British police don't normally carry guns).

But I really don't know the full scope of cultural or legal differences that
are needed to even understand this short article.

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rainonmoon
This is a bizarre comment, although certainly familiar. A British publication
writing about a crime in England, and you're faulting it for not offering
context comparing it to the American situation. As an Australian, should I
expect the international press to compare every issue to my own nation's laws?
Of course not. And yet the entitlement that all of the internet should cater
to the American audience is alarmingly popular.

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dragontamer
I'm not "faulting" it. I'm simply commenting on my own ignorance. Especially
since other directions in this thread don't seem to offer a British
perspective, or an explanation.

I understand that things are different over the pond. But that's about all I
really understand.

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makecheck
It’s bad enough that people have border security, job applications, etc. all
depend on access to social media accounts. Yet _fake_ accounts are clearly a
thing (I’ve seen two versions of “friends” on Facebook and LinkedIn), and some
people have never created accounts on even popular services. What do you do
when a guard is screaming at you to unlock an account that isn’t even you? And
if you lie and say you don’t have a Facebook account, I bet they aren’t aware
of the possibility of fake accounts and simply assume it’s impossible (so
what, you miss your flight if you never even had an account, because some
scammer made one for you?).

~~~
toyota786
Fake accounts are clearly a thing, you are right, so it seems silly to then
assume that the police and justice systems wouldn't be aware of them or assume
they were impossible. What do you do in any other scenario where you've
apprehended wrongly or are wrongly suspected?

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cwkoss
kind of silly that the court isn't just asking facebook

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m1573rp34130dy
...i think the approach is that since he refused to provide a passwd and
stymied the investigation, there is now a real basis in law to hold and
prosecute him...i.e. put him in jail, with a bunch of others that dont like
such ilk...a point of leverage i would think..

~~~
cwkoss
It's a weird situation because if a facebook engineer reset his password to
something else, he'd never be able to get out of jail? Seems odd to make a
criminal court order based on a commercial authentication scheme.

~~~
toyota786
If he forgets the password or it gets magically reset somehow and he
legitimately no longer has access to the account (a stretch....password resets
are a thing for this reason), then perhaps he should still serve his time
anyway as the crime has already been committed. If it was unrecoverable, then
of course he'd still be able to get out. It even says in the article he was
sentenced to 14 months, not until he gave up the password.

