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My dad was the security officer in a major department of UK gov, and he asked this very question to legal. The response was that if the key doesn't exist, you m

My dad was the security officer in a major department of UK gov, and he asked this very question to legal. The response was that if the key doesn't exist, you must prove its non-existence. His protest on that fell on deaf ears. Furthermore, if the key is controlled under the Official Secrets Act, you will brake the law both when you hand them over you and when you don't. Basically, laws that don't make absolute logical sense are fine, they'll just decide who to prosecute. Totally fine, nothing to see here.

Jach 15y ago
That's pretty damn messed up. Basically they're saying: "we're accusing you of having X, we didn't find it on your encrypted drive, but maybe you have a hidden OS where it's at! Give the key!" And suppose you did give up your hidden OS key and they still find nothing? Do they say "Aha! Well, we didn't find it on this device, but we found this innocent picture of Jesus--give us the key you used to steg the information inside!"? And suppose you actually had some steg'd info inside, but it's not the information they wanted, it's nothing illegal. Do they then say "Clearly you dumped the incriminating hard drive in a landfill--tell us where!"? Something mentioned at the beginning of the paper "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, is Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Traps, from 1956. It involves a seemingly innocent man put on trial by a group of retired lawyers for a mock trial game, the man inquires what his crime shall be. "An altogether minor matter," the prosecutor replied … "A crime can always be found."