Re:Reasonable Search & Seizure (Score 2, Interesting)

This is the very thing that makes encryption+law so interesting.

In the "real world" the safe in the wall can be opened by brute force.
A diamond tipped circular saw / giant freakin laser beam would make short work of the physical safe.

In the "math world", intractable is intractable. You can't reversse a %mod operation, and factoring is Hard.

So what are the implications?

Scenarios:
Genuinely innocent individual downloads PGP after reading interesting internet article about encryption on the internet.
Individual encrypts mundane files "just to play" with some software, and forgets the key/passphrase
Individual's computer gets confiscated by the police because of an RIAA complaint (or terrorism investigations, whatever)

Genuinely guilty evil doer downloads PGP after reading interesting internet article about encryption on the internet.
Evil doer encrypts genuinely incriminating files for the purposes of not letting the powers that be see the evidence.
Individual's computer gets confiscated by the police because of an RIAA complaint (or terrorism investigations, whatever)

What now?

The safe analogy and any self incrimination vs plausible deniability arguments become blurred because of circumstance. The safe cannot be opened.
Circumstance is now in play...
10 gigs of encrypted files with time stamps relevant to the accused infraction would indicate "something to hide"... but you can never be sure.

This should be interesting to watch play out.

-s