FROM THE ENCRYPTION-IS-OVERRATED DEPT: Feds Crack Encrypted Drives, Arrest Child Porn Suspect. “The authorities did not say what type of encryption Feldman used. But the case illustrates that encryption isn’t foolproof and that the authorities are making headway cracking encryption.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I’m ironically writing while traveling for an advanced computer forensics class. I’ve been in digital forensics and information security for over 15 years.

I can tell you that good encryption cannot be feasibly beat by anything but the most outrageous computer resources as of this day. The issue is the keys – which are passwords. Too many people will utilize the very best encryption mechanisms and then lock it with passwords that are easy to guess, compute, or more often than not, are re-used on other Internet-based systems where they are easily captured with the help of corporations not willing to get on the wrong side of the Feds. It’s like having a heavy duty bomb-proof vault and setting the combination to 1-2-3-4 (SpaceBalls reference).

I recommend TrueCrypt using an extremely long password (24 characters, it can actually be English words that you can easily remember, but obscure and long enough that no one else can guess). In addition, use a key file – an obscure file that may not even be on the computer in question, but on a USB disk This can even be a common Windows program, so long as it is not updated and doesn’t change in any way. This key file adds additional entropy to the encryption.

Most of all, don’t re-use any part of this password elsewhere! This is how hackers get in, this is how Feds get in. While it does not break my heart to see a child pornographer go down, I think we’ve all seen enough to know that the power the Fed has to day can and will be abused under FISA and the irresponsible leadership that follows all the way to the White House.

One of the best reasons to encrypt your hard drive is that it makes it harder for them to plant evidence. . . .