I believe it may be incorrect because in my (limited) understanding, good encryption is indistinguishable from random sequences of characters.
How can you tell a string of random characters is simply random, or is an encrypted message, unless said encryption includes some kind of header or marker information?
I may simply be wrong but I'm curious about the answer too.
Using software?
Why are you in possession of random data on a hard drive? A prosecutor will be happy to spin theories about what it might be.
How do you hide the possession of software you use to acess it? If you manage that, how do you hide the forensic evidence of "file access in random data consistent with evidence of hidden data or a hidden filesystem", in your OS or on your storage device?
I very much want to live in a world where these tools are legal. Otherwise, in the same sense as "lying to the FBI", they will be used as a weapon by law enforcement when none other is handy.
Just spitballing here but what if the software decrypted something as a side effect of doing something else like watching a movie. After all, buggy software is everywhere, perhaps that is just a bug.
What if that random file was a test input for a software fuzzing test. Is that not a plausible enough excuse?
What if the system periodically accessed data files [that had random data] to verify their integrity, you never know when data corruption might sneak in after all.
I totally agree that anyone trying to plead this case in court would likely fail miserably but the though experiment is interesting.
DRM movies are already encrypted. The DMCA does not seem to include an exception for law enforcement or intelligence gathering.
We just need an easy DRM format that allows content producers to licence and make available for viewing (but not arbitrary copying) custom content for specific viewers.
How much would you bet against "the bad guys" already using those as steganographic comms channels?