What if you forgot your password. O have a file catted from /dev/random that looks like a it could be TrueCrypt partition, good luck trying to convince them it is not an encrypted file. They'll just say "yeah, yeah" and you go to jail for 5 years.
Despite what you might hear from Fox News, you do actually have the right to a fair trial.
So far the case law (in the US) with respect to crypto is unclear. The only case involved someone showing the government child porn on their computer, and only later not providing the key. As far as I know, having an encrypted partition has never gotten anyone in any trouble, even if accused of a crime.
Under UK anti-terror measures in a case of national security failure to provide means to unlock encrypted files carries a 5 year prison sentence.
Those of the 15 cases (since the legislation passed in 2007) that have not been terror related have concerned child abuse (probably pornography) or domestic abuse (I'm thinking that possibly means "honour killings", but that's speculation).
Personally I have no problems with coercing people to reveal details of the children they've abused, family members they've had killed, or of their plans to blow up my fellow countrymen.
<sarcasm>But I can see how, if it's just your porn collection that you're hiding from your wife, that when you get collared for terrorism that having some mathematician at GCHQ know you've got a rubber fetish is really going to ruin your day.
I have a little more faith in the mathematicians of GCHQ than this. Indeed I suspect that in at least some of these cases (which according to Sir Christoper relate only to child endangerment, domestic abuse or terrorism) GCHQ could decrypt the contents themselves but wished not to reveal that fact to terrorist groups that want to blow us all [in the UK] up.
> O have a file catted from /dev/random that looks like a it could be TrueCrypt partition, good luck trying to convince them it is not an encrypted file.
That's a mistake unlikely to be made; partly because the vast majority of seized computers run Windows :P but mostly because it is fairly obvious.
Actually, the randomness coming from /dev/random and the randomness of a TrueCrypt partition are demonstrably different. See: http://16systems.com/TCHunt/faq.php
