You can be forced to give up the keys to your hard drive.

Few examples:

https://www.cnet.com/news/doj-we-can-force-you-to-decrypt-th... https://www.cnet.com/news/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-d... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/17260917532/judge...

Its true that you can be ordered by the court to decrypt drives. Then there is a documented point-in-time when the state received read/write access to your drives, and also, presumably the drives are already in custody etc.

I think the highest risk of evidence being planted would occur during the search and seizure process, so encryption would help you there. And it also prevents informants from doing it and then selling you out for their own benefit. And it prevents thieves from looking through your files if your bag gets snatched.

Overall I think disk encryption provides some great benefits.

EDIT: although you have to be more careful about data loss, for example: https://www.gwern.net/Notes#november-2016-data-loss-postmort...

This is by no means ultimately decided yet.

Increasingly I'm convinced that if you want to keep a secret for any reason, the only way to do it these days is encrypted on an SSD that will physically self-destruct without regular maintenance of the "kill switch" (also cryptographically secure). It should do this on a regular enough basis that you could withstand the stay in a cell, but long enough that an unexpected weekend in the hospital doesn't wipe out your data.

The thing is that you must have this as your standard practice... you can't just adopt it when the feds kick down your down.

So the first thing done when seizing a computer storage devices is to hook it up to a device that read only capabilities and make 1 to 1 copies.

https://www.digitalintelligence.com/products/forensic_duplic...

This is done for chain of custody reasons but would also effectively circumvent your security.

You need to have your storage medium self destruct if it is hooked up to a system other than the one it was paired with.

This system would have to rely on the logic board of the storage device so you would have to harden that so that a swap of the logic board also renders the storage device inoperable.

Let them try.

http://securedrives.co.uk/

I mean physical destruction of the NAND gates... just kill it with a "hammer" kind of destroyed. Set it up so it's a fail-deadly switch, and there you go.

Obviously don't keep your family photos on it.

Thanks! I didn't know that something like that exists.

Isn't it great? I don't have a need for one personally, but I had propriety info I'd rather see destroyed than released?... that would be my solution.

There are people who have programed their storage devices to zeroize when read sequentially over the whole drive; specifically to prevent an unauthorized party from cloning the drive.

People do not swap the logic boards of drives often, because unless you get an exact revision match they will be incompatible.

unless you get an exact revision match they may be incompatible.

The great thing about old news is there is often more recent updates.

Regarding Ramona Fricosu

"Fricosu's attorney claimed it was possible she did not remember the password. A month later, Fricosu's ex-husband handed the police a list of potential passwords.[3] One of the passwords worked, rendering the self-incrimination issue moot."

We have no way of knowing what would have happened ultimately.

Doubtful Geek Squad is going to force you though.

Another great reason not to use Geek Squad