Opening a File After A Hash Was Made and Matched to Known Image of Child Pornography is Not a "Search," Fifth Circuit Rules
http://reason.com/volokh/2018/08/17/opening-a-file-after-a-hash-was-made-and [reason.com]
2018-08-21 16:48
tags:
cloud
hash
policy
storage
An interesting case applying the private search reconstruction doctrine.
I suppose this hinges on what the baseline knowledge should be for a opening a file. It’s an interesting question. If it is known that a particular hash value corresponds with a particular known image, how do you model what is learned by opening a file that matched that hash? Do you say that the opener of the file already has the knowledge of what that particular image looks like, and that opening the file to see that it is that image really just confirms that it’s a match and doesn’t tell the agent anything else? Or do you model the agent’s knowledge as just being that a file matched with some known image, and that opening the file thus gives the opener more information about what the file looks like?