Hear me out ... On TV shows like Criminal Minds they make it out to appear that

Question

Hear me out ... On TV shows like Criminal Minds they make it out to appear that any encrypted files can be easily decrypted, even without a key. The character, Garcia, just simply "pushes some buttons" and the file becomes decrypted almost instantly, even without any key, etc. I know that the show is not a good example of REAL WORLD events, but unless they're making a mockery of encryption I can't see why they'd make viewers think it's so easy just because they're F.B.I., as if that makes them magically capable of anything without knowledge.

But here's my point ... An encrypted file is bits; just bits that are garbage unless made back (decrypted) into what they originally were. Isn't it possible, in theory, to work through each byte and try to figure out what it originally was without a key, brute-force, etc.? Why not?

I mean there might be some possible way to determine what the original data may have once been by analyzing data directly yourself using some mathematical, logical, or other pattern first-hand, maybe? Doesn't there have to be some kind of strategy or pattern that can enable one to reverse the data manually?

Explanation / Answer

- Show me the file contents.
- I cannot, chief ! It's encrypted !
- Dammit ! He wins this time.

An so ends the show, 5 minutes after the start.

TV shows don't show the "real world", and that's not to make a mockery; that's because shows aim at pleasing the audience, by providing them the sensations and feelings that they crave for. If it implies depicting events which are distorted, or even physically infeasible, then so be it. After all, Star Wars explosions make noise in the vacuum of space, and Godzilla is an ill-tampered radioactive lizard who breathes fire and insults a giant moth in Japanese while trampling Tokyo.

If encryption is done properly, then it cannot be broken upfront. But nobody said that police forces must act only within the formal mathematical rules of cryptography. In fact, they will first break your door at 06:00 AM and seize your computers and look for traces of the unencrypted data (e.g. parts of deleted files). After all, an encrypted file is useful only if was not encrypted at some point, and will be decrypted at some other point. Whenever a file exists somewhere in unencrypted format, it is prone to leak.

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