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Encryption Workarounds (2017)

The widespread use of encryption has triggered a new step in many criminal investigations: The encryption workaround. We define an encryption workaround as any lawful government effort to reveal unencrypted plaintext of a target’s data that has been concealed by encryption. This Article provides an overview of encryption workarounds. It begins with a taxonomy of the different ways investigators might try to bypass encryption schemes. We classify six kinds of workarounds: find the key, guess the key, compel the key, exploit a flaw in the encryption software, access plaintext while the device is in use, and locate another plaintext copy. For each approach, we consider the practical, technological, and legal hurdles raised by its use.The remainder of ...

papers.ssrn.com     May 14, 2018