> you definitely can't deliberately use encryption as a defense against discovery anymore than you can destroy evidence by degaussing your hard drive.
The main problem with "forgetting" the passphrase is that they're unlikely to believe you and the judge may rule that the jury is allowed to hold it against you. You're absolutely right about that.
That said, there's a more subtle problem with DRMed media: it's entirely possible to have large, random files on your computer that are, in fact, movies and such that you no longer have the rights to play. If you can't prove that the expired movies are just that, rather than encrypted files of your own, you might get in trouble.
Hopefully, they'd notice that you had an account with whatever service and the movies in question were expired and they were in such-and-such a directory with the appropriate filenames and whatnot, but you never know. I mean, Sony hid a rootkit on a music CD. You never know what crazy things they'll try to put on your computer.
The main problem with "forgetting" the passphrase is that they're unlikely to believe you and the judge may rule that the jury is allowed to hold it against you. You're absolutely right about that.
That said, there's a more subtle problem with DRMed media: it's entirely possible to have large, random files on your computer that are, in fact, movies and such that you no longer have the rights to play. If you can't prove that the expired movies are just that, rather than encrypted files of your own, you might get in trouble.
Hopefully, they'd notice that you had an account with whatever service and the movies in question were expired and they were in such-and-such a directory with the appropriate filenames and whatnot, but you never know. I mean, Sony hid a rootkit on a music CD. You never know what crazy things they'll try to put on your computer.