They're always out trying to censor everything. Screw them!

If true, this is ridiculously expensive, considering how common actual FDE is, and how huge of a loophole it is for a computer of unknown capability to be left powered and running for hours after it's been moved. All it takes is a $4 movement sensor and it can write a minimal OS to lonely corner of the disk, and then boot to it and have it's entire operation be to overwrite every disk sector with random data gathered from the physical movement of the machine, 1s, and 0s. Over and over, until they get to the lab.

Once this kind of thing is commonplace, leaving the computer powered up during transport will stop being commonplace - if it really is.

Damn.. this is so true it hurts.

I had this same idea, then I was called, and I did mention jury nullification while questioned by lawyers to see if they wanted me on the jury. I partially wanted to make sure that the rest of the jury pool heard of the concept, and I partially wanted to see what would happen. I ended up being dismissed, though for full disclosure I asked to be, because I had too much going on with work.

How ironic is it that this post ends by asking where anonymous is when you need him / them, and starts with 'an anonymous reader writes'?

A long time ago, for me, slashdot WAS the internet. It was THE place around with ease of use plus freedom of speech, anonymous posting, and reasonable though eccentric people (and yes, they are still here along with the rest of us.) Thank you for making something so fundamental to the development of developers who developed the modern technological age we live in, that having a four digit slashdot id is something to be proud of.

Yes, that's right - for the sake of old times, in your face, five digit plussers!

Despite the many forests of IBM patent applications, they don't actually seem to invent much useful stuff.

Are all CEOs are reluctant to do R&D? Ask Steve Jobs.

Somehow, the missing 'V' in Chevy in the title makes this hilarious.

Yes it is so much that they are incompetent, or they wouldn't be the ones asking. A judge should be asking, as he has legal authority to call it contempt of court if they refuse, and that can be appealed.

The DOJ's job is to gather evidence to try to prove crimes occurred. If they don't have enough OTHER EVIDENCE than what they ASSUME is incriminating in the strongly encrypted drive, to have a judge agree that it's worth invading the person's privacy and constitutional rights, then they don't have any right to be asking, and certainly not to be such dicks about it.

If they can't make a case against the person without that person's help, they don't have a case. And they haven't done their jobs.

No, they are incompetent because they don't have enough evidence gathered to convince a judge ask the person to reveal their password as a court order. They're trying to go around the system, or pretend a different system exists to get people to incriminate themselves. Judges have ordered people to reveal passwords many times, and that is legal - and thus subject to the legal process, legal review and appeals, etc.

Too much hassle for the DOJ, they want to 'force' people to give up their secret info. Fuck 'em. They have no legal basis, there is no motivation to comply. If you find yourself in this situation, have YOUR LAWYER tell them, that you retain your 5th Amendment rights and you will not give up the password, unless they agree to give you permanent blanket immunity to anything that might be found or stem from the machine search, let you out of whatever they arrested you for, and give you a few million for your trouble.

More importantly, because of the 5th, refusing to hand over the keys is not an incriminating act either. They can break down the door if they want. And if you want to buy a really fucking strong door, that's your decision. Similarly, if you decide to use strong encryption, they have the option of spending a few to a few hundred years decrypting it if they want. But you should never, under any circumstances, help them fuck you over. Regardless of any and all laws - survival supersedes them all.

Great idea, once this is required, we won't have to handle this kind of thing on our own.

Speaking as someone who spends his entire life immersed in Apple tech, you're wrong - the rules definitely still apply to Apple, it's really annoying that I can't get a power adapter replacement for less than $70.

But on the other hand, before they made the patented adapter and there were knockoffs, I used one of them and it destroyed a Powerbook I owned roughly a decade ago. I was out of AppleCare already but if I hadn't been, I'd have been screwed and it would have been my own fault. Power supply is worth more than a couple bucks to keep stable given the voltage requirements modern electronics have, and there is rarely enough room in the device to put the transformer. So it's left to the adapter.

Thank you.

What exactly is the benefit here? I kept waiting to see that somehow variable frequency power would travel farther or be more efficient, or at least save power companies some money (which I'm sure it does, or this wouldn't be happening).. but I can't imagine why or how.

Without explaining the benefit, this makes as much sense as ICANN opening up the TLDs.