New York Times wants technology to make information subpeona-proof.

I damned sure can't fault them for this desire. This slaps the face of those who want to railroad any vestiges of a constitutional privacy right.

It's not so simple as encrypting the data because a judge can order you to tell him the password, then you have to try to make him believe you forgot it (fat chance.) Rather, it would need to be a multi-part key which not only depends on you, but the person you're protecting.

Let's consider a customer database instead of an anonymous source (which the press has a hard time constraining). If you have sensitive information regarding a customer, you'd need the customer to give you a key in addition to your own. You could use token technology where the key changes every 60 seconds, making it impossible for you to re-open the file after it's closed back up. Various schemes exist to accomplish this now, but none is perfected yet because of certain practical concerns like sending out billing notices and such.

However, progress is being made. And that's good. I hope my own Representative (who is now a traitor to my representation) chokes on the whole wad of the Patriot Act. He loses my vote next election, which is really, really painful, too because I'm almost forced to vote for a Democrat (spoiling a 15 year streak of voting for Democrats only in sheriffs' races), and what if he's an Idiot, like a certain Michigan senator? My stomach hurts now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/business/media/01paper.html?

Disclaimer: Debbie Stabinaw please note that I am not representing you as being an idiot in fact, rather I am expressing my own humble opinion that you're as stupid as a doorstop.