I am interested in hearing from someone involved in criminal 'cyber' law or any related fields and/or computer forensics professionals.

I also expect a few IANAL posts too ;-)

I was wondering about encryption the other day and am interested to know how New Zealand law would or has handled cases in which alleged computer criminals have encrypted their hard drives with TrueCrypt or something similar.

Can (or has) a judge compel a person provide the keys required to decrypt the contents of the hard drive assuming it was evidence or potentially evidence?

How well would a "lol, I forgot da password" defence go down with a court? Is there really any way to punish someone (e.g. contempt of court) if it is impossible to tell whether they are lying or not?

As with many crimes of an electronic nature, if the evidence is on the encrypted drive in a computer and you have 'forgotten' the password would the case have to be dropped?

I remember reading about this case in which the police went to incredible lengths to secure an offender's computer while it was on and decrypted so they were able to analyse its contents. Would this mean a judge could not have ordered the drive's decryption or simply that the police wanted an easier time gathering evidence?

My interest is based on the rising number of crimes being committed online, from hacking to child pornography to copyright infringement, and the technical inability to crack such encryption systems when administered correctly.

TIA for any insight :)