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Are they unbreakable by the technique actually used by the average EU country though ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.wikipedia.or

Are they unbreakable by the technique actually used by the average EU country though ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law Generally it goes like this 1) you get a notice either from a judge or the police to provide unspecified assistance with an investigation (you are not told even 5 minutes in advance WHAT assistance, and there is a default gag order: if you inform a customer or ... that you handed over their info, you go to jail) 2) if you refuse to do something they charge you with a crime, not providing encryption keys is such a crime 3) look like EU "average" sentence is 2 to 5 years prison, plus 50k euros One time pads are obviously encrypted, meaning if you see one you know they're a key to something, so if you refuse to decrypt what is encrypted with them (or can't, let's not pretend these people know or care about what is and isn't possible beyond obvious cases like whatsapp), and a police officer cares, you may very well have a choice: decode or face 2 years prison. JUST for not giving a police officer full access, for example, to your phone, nothing else.

mullingitover 6y ago
> One time pads are obviously encrypted Not obviously - you could have a 1GB blob of encrypted data, or a 1GB blob of random numbers, so there is plausible deniability. You're right that they're vulnerable to a rubber hose attack, but it's not a slam dunk case in court.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  If your threat model includes the threat of your government torturing you for information, then you don't need to worry about whether they are able to decrypt your data because they could just as easily plant some false evidence, or simply "disappear" you. Specifically on the issue of plausible deniability, though, you probably don't want just a 1 GB blob of random-looking data, you want a file system with various levels of "secret compartments" which open up depending on which key you use to open it. The game theory is that this prevents the attack you describe (and after which Assange named this countermeasure) because you could never prove to your torturers that you have given them the last key, and thus you would have no reason to comply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > If your threat model includes the threat of your government torturing you for information, then you don't need to worry about whether they are able to decrypt your data because they could just as easily plant some false evidence, or simply "disappear" you. wrt a 'rubber hose attack' I'm really talking about general coercion, not actual torture. A court could jail you for contempt you until you produce the information it's demanding.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  That deniability is plausible to no one but cryptographers. People don't generally keep gigabytes of random data on their hard drives for their entertainment. Of course the assumption will be that it's encrypted data, because the probability of it being anything else is vanishingly low.

mullingitover 6y ago

> One time pads are obviously encrypted Not obviously - you could have a 1GB blob of encrypted data, or a 1GB blob of random numbers, so there is plausible deniability. You're right that they're vulnerable to a rubber hose attack, but it's not a slam dunk case in court.

dane-pgp 6y ago
If your threat model includes the threat of your government torturing you for information, then you don't need to worry about whether they are able to decrypt your data because they could just as easily plant some false evidence, or simply "disappear" you. Specifically on the issue of plausible deniability, though, you probably don't want just a 1 GB blob of random-looking data, you want a file system with various levels of "secret compartments" which open up depending on which key you use to open it. The game theory is that this prevents the attack you describe (and after which Assange named this countermeasure) because you could never prove to your torturers that you have given them the last key, and thus you would have no reason to comply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > If your threat model includes the threat of your government torturing you for information, then you don't need to worry about whether they are able to decrypt your data because they could just as easily plant some false evidence, or simply "disappear" you. wrt a 'rubber hose attack' I'm really talking about general coercion, not actual torture. A court could jail you for contempt you until you produce the information it's demanding.
selfhoster11 6y ago
That deniability is plausible to no one but cryptographers. People don't generally keep gigabytes of random data on their hard drives for their entertainment. Of course the assumption will be that it's encrypted data, because the probability of it being anything else is vanishingly low.