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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Would it be totally ridiculous to argue that the encryption key is more like instructions for constructing data?

"Take these raw materials, and run the machine according to these instrctions:" seems functionally equivalent to "take this chunk of useless data, and run the machine according to this decryption key:". An incorrect decryption key produces data, it just produces garbage data, yes? This would be the same as providing poor instructions to the machine.

In this way, the court isn't asking you to reveal evidence, they're asking you to construct if for them.

Once it's been encrypted, it's been destroyed. "Decrypting" is analogous to "rebuilding".

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The decryption key doesn't construct data anymore than the combination to a safe constructs the papers inside it. The data exist independently of anyone's ability to read them.

What does that mean for XORing your data with an equal-sized chunk of truly random data (pulled from, say, http://www.random.org/ )? From an information standpoint, the data is gone because the result is also truly random, and doesn't exist any more except in the combination of the output and the key.

I disagree. It is entirely possible to have a set of bits the can be 'decrypted' with different keys producing different results. One key might produce a set of cartoon pictures, another might produce financial records. The simple safe analogy seems to break down around this. Only one key unlocks a safe. Every key can be used to decrypt something that is encrypted, but unlike a safe, its not guaranteed what goes in comes out. I would argue that the data only exists if it can be read and that providing a mechanism for reading the data is establishing the existence of the data.

The purpose of encryption is to obscure and prevent access to data, not store it.

That's all a matter of perception though, no? Encryption is capable of storing data, therefore it can be used legitimately to do that. Just like most people use fans to cool people down during the summer, but people also use fans on large semi-rectangular pieces of metal to create hovercars.

Under that definition encryption equals /dev/null. It's a way to store data while limiting access to said data.

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