I'm not sure I understand your dislike of this idea. It's signing the images, not encrypting them. This isn't attempting to deny you the ability to see the pic

I'm not sure I understand your dislike of this idea. It's signing the images, not encrypting them. This isn't attempting to deny you the ability to see the pictures. Instead, it's supposed to demonstrate that an image wasn't modified after acquisition. I think it essentially takes the pixels, calculates a signature, and then stashes it somewhere in the jpeg/raw header. I can imagine some non-evil uses for that, like crime scene or insurance photographs. Heck, it might even be useful for online selling (here's an unretouched photo--look, no scratches!) You're right that it's tricky to protect the signing key from a-user-who-is-also-an-adversary though.