Winnipeg police stymied by encryption on alleged child sex predator's electronic devices

Newly unsealed court documents give a glimpse into the challenges the Winnipeg Police Service faced trying to uncover the contents of an accused child sex abuser's electronic devices. 

The devices were seized in a 2019 search warrant at Marshall Ruskin's Garden City home.

Ruskin, 63, is wanted on three arrest warrants in the Philippines for his alleged involvement in a child sex-trafficking ring led by Australian national and notorious pedophile Peter Scully.

Winnipeg police seized 10 electronic devices from Ruskin's home, and returned seven of them after they were able to open and examine them. 

However, investigators in the Winnipeg police technical crimes unit (TCU) have been trying for three years to crack open the remaining three — an iPhone, iPad and Macbook – to see whether charges might be warranted in Canada.

They say the encryption is too good and, so far, outside agencies including the RCMP have been unable to help.

Last Tuesday, Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Vic Toews told police they could hang onto the devices for three more years.

Those three extra years will give Winnipeg police time to catch up with the technology, a security researcher told CBC News. 

"What was very difficult to gain access to 10 years ago, five years ago, is very easy to gain access to now," said Christopher Parsons, senior research associate at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.

"The odds are in their favour that they will eventually gain access to those devices."

Officers allege Ruskin sent more than $3,000 Cdn to Scully's girlfriend in the Philippines to watch the live sexual abuse of an 11-year-old girl over the internet through the teleconferencing app Skype, according to a 2019 sworn affidavit to get authorization to search his home.

Police believe he recorded these Skype sessions on his electronic devices. 

In affidavits filed in court between November 2021 and February 2022 as part of a police application to keep Ruskin's electronic devices, investigators explained why they haven't yet been able to see what's on them.

The affidavits were unsealed last week after Ruskin abandoned a publication ban that had been previously ordered by Toews.