[vidarh]

Stay away from the UK - here a judge can throw you in jail for failure to provide keys, even if there's no evidence you still have the keys, and said judge would pretty much be guaranteed to believe that you did not hand over the correct keys if the result is garbage.

[scott_w]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/14/ripa_self_incriminat...

A couple of people have been convicted of refusing to hand over their encryption key.

It's worth noting that this is a separate offence, so there's a determinate prison sentence. You can't be held in contempt of court for refusing to hand it over.

[aianus]

If you claim the encryption was done using a One Time Pad, you can pick any result you want, generate the corresponding key, and hand that over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

[vog]

Unfortunately, the OTP is always as large as the encrypted data. So strictly speaking, this is not really "encrypted data + password" but more of a "split data into two random-looking parts". In particular, this is nothing you can keep in your head or print on paper.

You'd have to keep it on a separate storage medium. And if you have to hand out the done medium, what's preventing them to get your second medium? And if you are able to keep that second medium secret and safe, why don't you store the whole unencrypted data on it in the first place?

Either way: OTPs are really cool, but I don't think they have any relevance here.

[Ntrails]

I think this might be slight hyperbole but can you link to some cases/incidents for support?

Cheers.

[michaelt]

It's not actually that common, but there have been at least 3 people prosecuted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/11/ripa_iii_figures/

[Ntrails]

That's in line with what I expected, thanks. Specifically to read:

"Of the 15 individuals served, 11 did not comply with the notices. Of the 11, seven were charged and two convicted."

Whilst they may have been incarcerated since the report, at the least it would seem that there is some evidence based procedure to determine "guilt" in terms of whether you are able to produce the key or not.