3 ms·

Are there any protection mechanism against that? Something like, even if you are being tortured you cannot provide the access to anyone else?

Santosh83 7y ago
Sharded secrets... you only have one part of a key or keys needed to decrypt some data so even extracting that from you by torture will not suffice. Of course this isn't always practical.
- maxaf 7y ago
  “They” (whoever they are) can torture more than one person at a time.
  - gruez 7y ago
    Presumably the other key holders are in a different jurisdiction.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    The trick is to ensure you are never near all the people who know the secret when there is the possibility of trouble. That makes kidnapping everyone harder. Of course if you really worry about such things you shouldn't be trusting the other people you are working with either...
amoshi 7y ago
Plausible deniability, like hidden containers in TrueCrypt? That's a double edged sword though - imagine you give up, surrender the password and are then being asked to unlock a hidden volume, which you don't have.
ben_w 7y ago
Yes, but: 1) they might not believe you, and 2) that’s still true even if the reason you don’t have a key is because you don’t actually have a secret encrypted partition — or whatever — to supply a decryption key for So the best thing to do is avoid being in a situation where someone is allowed to do that in the first place.
- aforensics 7y ago
  This is interesting. This also means that using encryption or anything that can plausibly make someone even slightly suspect you're using encryption (even if you are not) can make your situation worse, with certain classes of enemies. I'm sure advanced configurations with well-crafted decoys and steganography can help combat that, but as we can see, encryption can only take you so far and it's only one element of the picture.
jmt_ 7y ago
I believe Truecrypt supported a feature where different passwords would unlock different partitions in a volume. So someone could ask you to input the password for BadBoy.tc, and if you enter password1, then you get say the data they actually want. But if you enter password2, it mounts a different part of the file which gives the appearance that you unlocked the whole thing. So, you could stage a dummy partition that has false but convincing data and hopefully fool any captors.
contravariant 7y ago
Don't take the laptop with you. At this point setting up a secure connection to a device in a secure location is way easier than trying to protect your data against someone with physical access. You can also get your collaborators to revoke access if you fear you might be 'compromised', although ultimately it's hard to protect a system against yourself.
megous 7y ago
If you're talking about protection for the people that may be captured with the help of the data you may have on your computer, yes. Otherwise, no. When they have you they can just torture you to death for whatever reason or no reason at all.
bArray 7y ago
I think one method would be to ensure you don't have the full key, i.e. you have some select friends, each that have part of the key (with some redundancy) - all unaware of one another and potentially all unaware that they even have part of the key. Then you position your friends over multiple jurisdictions so that they cannot legally compel all of them to play along.
smichel17 7y ago
Encrypt with two keys, one that you know and one that a trusted third party , knows. When you reach your destination, establish secure contact with the third party and have them share their key.

Santosh83 7y ago

Sharded secrets... you only have one part of a key or keys needed to decrypt some data so even extracting that from you by torture will not suffice. Of course this isn't always practical.

maxaf 7y ago
“They” (whoever they are) can torture more than one person at a time.
- gruez 7y ago
  Presumably the other key holders are in a different jurisdiction.
- bluGill 7y ago
  The trick is to ensure you are never near all the people who know the secret when there is the possibility of trouble. That makes kidnapping everyone harder. Of course if you really worry about such things you shouldn't be trusting the other people you are working with either...

amoshi 7y ago

Plausible deniability, like hidden containers in TrueCrypt? That's a double edged sword though - imagine you give up, surrender the password and are then being asked to unlock a hidden volume, which you don't have.

ben_w 7y ago

Yes, but: 1) they might not believe you, and 2) that’s still true even if the reason you don’t have a key is because you don’t actually have a secret encrypted partition — or whatever — to supply a decryption key for So the best thing to do is avoid being in a situation where someone is allowed to do that in the first place.

aforensics 7y ago
This is interesting. This also means that using encryption or anything that can plausibly make someone even slightly suspect you're using encryption (even if you are not) can make your situation worse, with certain classes of enemies. I'm sure advanced configurations with well-crafted decoys and steganography can help combat that, but as we can see, encryption can only take you so far and it's only one element of the picture.

jmt_ 7y ago

I believe Truecrypt supported a feature where different passwords would unlock different partitions in a volume. So someone could ask you to input the password for BadBoy.tc, and if you enter password1, then you get say the data they actually want. But if you enter password2, it mounts a different part of the file which gives the appearance that you unlocked the whole thing. So, you could stage a dummy partition that has false but convincing data and hopefully fool any captors.

contravariant 7y ago

Don't take the laptop with you. At this point setting up a secure connection to a device in a secure location is way easier than trying to protect your data against someone with physical access. You can also get your collaborators to revoke access if you fear you might be 'compromised', although ultimately it's hard to protect a system against yourself.

megous 7y ago

If you're talking about protection for the people that may be captured with the help of the data you may have on your computer, yes. Otherwise, no. When they have you they can just torture you to death for whatever reason or no reason at all.

bArray 7y ago

I think one method would be to ensure you don't have the full key, i.e. you have some select friends, each that have part of the key (with some redundancy) - all unaware of one another and potentially all unaware that they even have part of the key. Then you position your friends over multiple jurisdictions so that they cannot legally compel all of them to play along.

smichel17 7y ago

Encrypt with two keys, one that you know and one that a trusted third party , knows. When you reach your destination, establish secure contact with the third party and have them share their key.