Encryption is not like a safe. In a safe, you close the door, lock it, and the contents remain unaffected. Cutting through the back of the safe would yield the

Encryption is not like a safe. In a safe, you close the door, lock it, and the contents remain unaffected. Cutting through the back of the safe would yield the same contents. In this way, safes are more like BIOS passwords. The password is written to the hard drive and the BIOS acts as a gatekeeper. However, there's no reason you couldn't use a BIOS designed to ignore the presence of a password. If we were to design a physical analog to encryption, it would be more like a matter scrambler. You place your diamonds, jewels, insurance papers, etc. (or, in this case, incriminating evidence) onto a platform and enter a password. The contents of the platform are TRANSFORMED into a pile of pebbles, dirt, and dust which you sweep into a bag. The bag's contents are indistinguishable from anything else in your yard (Remember, GOOD encryption is indistinguishable from randomness as both encrypted data and random numbers do not compress well). The proper password will cause the matter scrambler to reproduce the valuables but otherwise will just yield more dirt, dust, and pebbles. It is therefore an ACTIVE process to reproduce incriminating evidence in a case by decrypting data. One is not providing access to already existing evidence, one is PRODUCING it from pure garbage. Ordo ad chao ac ordo ab chao.