[chrismorgan]

> Can a judge order you to do something that is not possible?

Certainly. Here’s a relevant explanatory comment that I wrote a couple of years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23632398.

Contempt of court is an exceptionally powerful instrument. If the law says you must remove things on request, what were you doing putting stuff in a place that you couldn’t remove them? And if the law says you must provide such-and-such information to the police on presentation of a court order, “I can’t because I designed it so I couldn’t” is not an acceptable defence. So far, these things have been flying under the radar for the most part, but it wouldn’t take much for them to be explicitly banned on the grounds that they make it impossible to comply with law.