4 ms·

VeraCrypt has a cool function which is a reserved space for a decoy OS.[1] Everything else registers as free space while decrypting to dummy volume. You make th

VeraCrypt has a cool function which is a reserved space for a decoy OS.[1] Everything else registers as free space while decrypting to dummy volume. You make the dummy volume look lived in, and forget. provide dummy password, volume decrypts such that only dummy is accessible/readable. give proper password, real OS and FS decrypt and load. Something like this may need to become the standars over duress pins which should be treated as a fallback or more extreme alternative. Right now, A single choice to reasonably and rightfully protect your privacy reuslts in jail time over something which likely wouldnt have resulted in any issues if superficial compliance was observed. These goons, even if a branch of a facist regime, are ultimately burocrats with violent options to settle. They aren't doing forensics on your device etc. They have neither means nor knowledge to do so. They just need to tick their boxes. Did the phone unlock? tick. Did our spyware complain? no? tick. Overall appearance of compliance from person? yes? tick. free to go, next! You just have to find ways to stay safe without agitating their workflow and all is well. - [1] https://veracrypt.io/en/VeraCrypt%20Hidden%20Operating%20System.html https://veracrypt.io/en/VeraCrypt%20Hidden%20Operating%20Sys...

gruez 3mo ago
>VeraCrypt has a cool function which is a reserved space for a decoy OS.[1] Everything else registers as free space while decrypting to dummy volume. You make the dummy volume look lived in, and forget. provide dummy password, volume decrypts such that only dummy is accessible/readable. give proper password, real OS and FS decrypt and load. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057812 Implementing it in a convincing way is harder than you think. Moreover if you're under the type of regime that will throw you in jail for not giving up a password, they're probably not going to let you off the hook because they can't definitively prove you have a hidden volume.
- Grimblewald 3mo ago
  I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the dummy OS views the remaining space as legitimate and accessible free space. Using dummy directly is of course dangerous, as you might overwrite sectors with legitimate data, but also, you can access dummy os from secret. so you'd drive dummy from secret to prevent that but can load dummy as main if under duress and it looks fine. Browser, logged into various inconsequential things, random files for inoffensive memes and other human stuff in downloads folder etc. maybe an email account you've signed up to a few newsletters and e-stores that send spam logging in via an email client that auto-launches etc. Done well, I see no reason it should raise redflags in routine stops, so unless you're being targeted (at which point you've got way bigger problems) it should just seem like you're a run of the mill person who does not use their device to its full capacity, which is the majority of users. at some point, having any mitigations even present is a problem. At some point being met with a boot password at all is a problem that puts you on a list. I have no solution there other than to not go to those countries or keep dummy hot.
  - gruez 3mo ago
    If you read the linked thread, you'd see the reasons are: 1. SSDs (including phones) have TRIM/discard, so you need to disable it, otherwise the hidden volume would get wiped. You going out of your way to disable it is going to be suspicious. 2. Even if the above wasn't an issue, you can't really use the outer os to any meaningful extent, because you run the risk of overwriting the inner volume. That makes your decoy os suspicious. It's not definitive proof you have a hidden volume, but I doubt the authorities would care too much about that.
    - CGamesPlay 3mo ago
      I last used this feature probably more than a decade ago, but: you provide 2 passwords when decrypting. If the first password is the main volume, the second is attempted as a hidden volume. If both match, the main volume registers the hidden volume as free space but prevents writing to it. If the hidden volume doesn't match, the main volume will clobber the hidden volume. So the main/hidden volumes really works like a duress: you might destroy your hidden volume while using the main one under duress, but that does not apply when using the main volume while able to additionally unlock the hidden volume. If you are in a situation to need to worry about any of this, you're probably going to jail for one reason or another, anyways.
      - gruez 3mo ago
        >So the main/hidden volumes really works like a duress: you might destroy your hidden volume while using the main one under duress, but that does not apply when using the main volume while able to additionally unlock the hidden volume. The problem is that if the main volume doesn't have any signs of activity, then that's highly suspicious. Why are you carrying around a laptop that's mostly empty and hasn't been used in months? Why is it that despite seemingly not being used in months, there's physical signs of wear, like scratches or dust accumulation? If you do try to make the main volume seem "used", you run the risk of accidentally overwriting your hidden volume.
        CGamesPlay 3mo ago
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
bigfatkitten 3mo ago
Even in places where you can’t be compelled to hand over a password, attempting to deceive the cops will get you thrown in prison just as reliably as destroying evidence.
- Grimblewald 3mo ago
  true, but in that scenario you're going to prison either way. If you legitimately use the dummy for daily driving and hidden for sensitive work, then it's better than nothing. Obviously a good alternative is a dummy device but it carries similar risks, and the best option is to simply not go to authoritarian shitholes like the USA. Thankfully I've been able to avoid/push for US folks visiting us instead, but honestly the alternatives are as bad. Its a shit situation where most reasonable actions carry real risks, its up to individuals to choose what is acceptable risk to them, but a dummy os you use as a daily driver for inconsequential work is, to me, an ideal midground.
- AngryData 3mo ago
  Meanwhile cops can and do regularly deceive and lie to citizen and not only don't face any consequences but actively benefit from it.
  - tripleee 3mo ago
    I don't really see a problem with this assuming the deception is used to uncover crimes.
    - nkrisc 3mo ago
      Will the problem is that we’ve seen it’s not only used to uncover crimes. There’s plenty of empirical evidence of cops lying to lock up innocent people. One truly absurd case was lying to convince a man he killed his father, and extracted a murder confession for a victim who they knew wasn’t dead. https://people.com/thomas-perez-jr-murder-interrogation-11862514 https://people.com/thomas-perez-jr-murder-interrogation-1186...
teravor 3mo ago
this will likely fail as block devices aren't dumb anymore, the firmware state will out the hidden volume. counting on the laziness/unsophistication of an adversary isn't a great move. this problem may be solvable by a purpose-built abstraction where every write no matter what address will look identical to the firmware (naively, a randomized key-value map).
- JSR_FDED 3mo ago
  What does “block devices aren’t dumb anymore” mean?
  - greyface- 3mo ago
    Modern SSDs are log-structured under the hood. The presentation to the host system as a random access block device is an abstraction on top of that, emulating the semantics of spinning rust. Inspecting the underlying log will reveal the location of the hidden area, even if it looks random when read linearly.
    - vlovich123 3mo ago
      I’m not so sure that log structure would reveal to you VeraCrypt style hidden volumes. It would only tell you about which blocks are allocated but the whole point is that VeraCrypt would allocate the whole space and within it have hidden space. You wouldn’t be able to infer (at least ethically, but you could lie) whether or not a hidden partition exists because you don’t know if the allocated block is present in the filesystem or was just allocated and never trimmed.
      - greyface- 3mo ago
        It would also give you information about the order in which blocks were written, and the historical state of the disk. Because of wear leveling, block allocation isn't just a one-time initial thing; the mappings between logical and physical address space are changing with each write.
bb88 3mo ago
This is always been the dumbest thing about "hidden volumes": It relies upon your adversary not knowing about veracrypt's hidden volume. Which BTW, is plainly ADVERTISED on the web site. The second he knows you have veracode, he will ask for the other encrypted volume. See also relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- red369 3mo ago
  But Veracrypt can be used for encryption of a volume, without creating a hidden volume. I assume it would often be used this way. The $5 wrench decryption technique would be even more unpleasant if you hadn’t created a hidden volume, as there would be no way to prove you hadn’t. Should people be sure to never use Veracrypt volume encryption unless they create a hidden volume? I have trouble even thinking this way!
  - bb88 3mo ago
    The $5 wrench isn't about breaking encryption. It's about breaking will power. If they achieve their goals great for them. If not they proved the second volume either didn't actually exist or your will power was stronger than the $5 wrench. Either way they're probably way more happy with the outcome than you would be. As long as the border your crossing doesn't respect the 4th Amendment, the best approach is to not carry anything incriminating across it, nor anything that may make you suspicious.
crooked-v 3mo ago
This seems like the kind of thing that would put US citizens in way more legal jeopardy than just using a secure phone with a long password, refusing to unlock it, and buying a new one if the officers involved confiscate it out of spite.
Cider9986 3mo ago
It's not possible afaict on phones because they use flash memory. https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html
__MatrixMan__ 3mo ago
I worry about approaches like this because maybe the forensics tool fills all available space and then clears it, noticing that this particular phone is an anomaly re: manufacturer published space = allegedly available space + size of known files If you're hiding something in "empty space" it won't behave like empty space when you try to fill it. I think we need to be stenographically smarter. Like if there's some mechanism of deduplicating blocks across volumes, then perhaps when given the special key you could temporarily render a volume whose parts are hidden in the data already occupied by the other volume and then just run it in memory so that a reboot clears it.
- basilikum 3mo ago
  That's not how VeraCrypt hidden volumes work. > If you're hiding something in "empty space" it won't behave like empty space when you try to fill it. Yes, it will. It will overwrite the hidden data. When you have a 1 TB drive that you encrypt with VeraCrypt using a hidden volume the following happens: You have an outer decoy volume. This volume is 1TB in size and works like any other VeraCrypt volume. You have a smaller, hidden inner volume with a different password. When you unlock this volume the following happens: Veracrypt tries to unlock the normal voume, but fails because the password is incorrect. It now tries to decrypt a secondary volume header at an offset. This header contains the layout for the hidden volume which is positioned inside the free space of the outer volume. So the position of the hidden volume is encrypted. Now when you want to plant decoy files in the outer volume you actually do the following: While unlocking the volume you enable the option for hidden volumes and now you enter both passwords. So VeraCrypt knows where the inner volume is located and how large it is so it will not overwrite it. VeraCrypt will show the adjusted smaller size for the outer volume. When you're in a situation where you are forced to give up your password: You tell them your decoy password. They open the outer decoy volume. It appears like any other VeraCrypt volume spanning the whole size of the disk. If they write any files to it that might overwrite parts of the hidden volume. Notably all standard VeraCrypt volumes principally feature the option of hidden volumes. You cannot proof that a VeraCrypt volume does not have a hidden volume (short of it being full in the first place). The user base of people not using hidden volumes gives the plausible deniability to the people who do. Which is worth knowing as this can get you in trouble in certain scenarios. There are some issues with this though: SSD wear leveling and especially TRIM. You must not TRIM the blocks of the hidden volume, which can reveal it as it shall appear as free space that would usually be trimmed. So disable TRIM, which is suspicious in itself. Though TRIM also leaks information about file layout even for normal volumes, so there is some plausibility left. But it's not ideal. This is not an issue with HDDs (maybe with SMR though). I don't remember exactly, but I think you can do statistical analysis on the layout of files inside the outer volume and deduct the existence of the hidden volume from this under certain circumstances. Essentially, in a normal volume the filesystem would have written this file to these blocks, but it didn't and chose other blocks instead. So there must have been a block layer translation that reroutes blocks from the hidden volume and these free blocks that should not be free must be the hidden volume. I'm not too sure that's really what it was about. 5$ wrench method. I suspect you are hiding certain information in this VeraCrypt volume. I torture you. You give me the password. The information is not in there. Either you do not have the information or you are lying and using a hidden volume. I continue to torture you for the second password on the chance that you're using a hidden volume. This is what I was about earlier when I said VeraCrypt can get you in trouble.

gruez 3mo ago

>VeraCrypt has a cool function which is a reserved space for a decoy OS.[1] Everything else registers as free space while decrypting to dummy volume. You make the dummy volume look lived in, and forget. provide dummy password, volume decrypts such that only dummy is accessible/readable. give proper password, real OS and FS decrypt and load. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49057812 Implementing it in a convincing way is harder than you think. Moreover if you're under the type of regime that will throw you in jail for not giving up a password, they're probably not going to let you off the hook because they can't definitively prove you have a hidden volume.

Grimblewald 3mo ago
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the dummy OS views the remaining space as legitimate and accessible free space. Using dummy directly is of course dangerous, as you might overwrite sectors with legitimate data, but also, you can access dummy os from secret. so you'd drive dummy from secret to prevent that but can load dummy as main if under duress and it looks fine. Browser, logged into various inconsequential things, random files for inoffensive memes and other human stuff in downloads folder etc. maybe an email account you've signed up to a few newsletters and e-stores that send spam logging in via an email client that auto-launches etc. Done well, I see no reason it should raise redflags in routine stops, so unless you're being targeted (at which point you've got way bigger problems) it should just seem like you're a run of the mill person who does not use their device to its full capacity, which is the majority of users. at some point, having any mitigations even present is a problem. At some point being met with a boot password at all is a problem that puts you on a list. I have no solution there other than to not go to those countries or keep dummy hot.
- gruez 3mo ago
  If you read the linked thread, you'd see the reasons are: 1. SSDs (including phones) have TRIM/discard, so you need to disable it, otherwise the hidden volume would get wiped. You going out of your way to disable it is going to be suspicious. 2. Even if the above wasn't an issue, you can't really use the outer os to any meaningful extent, because you run the risk of overwriting the inner volume. That makes your decoy os suspicious. It's not definitive proof you have a hidden volume, but I doubt the authorities would care too much about that.
  - CGamesPlay 3mo ago
    I last used this feature probably more than a decade ago, but: you provide 2 passwords when decrypting. If the first password is the main volume, the second is attempted as a hidden volume. If both match, the main volume registers the hidden volume as free space but prevents writing to it. If the hidden volume doesn't match, the main volume will clobber the hidden volume. So the main/hidden volumes really works like a duress: you might destroy your hidden volume while using the main one under duress, but that does not apply when using the main volume while able to additionally unlock the hidden volume. If you are in a situation to need to worry about any of this, you're probably going to jail for one reason or another, anyways.
    - gruez 3mo ago
      >So the main/hidden volumes really works like a duress: you might destroy your hidden volume while using the main one under duress, but that does not apply when using the main volume while able to additionally unlock the hidden volume. The problem is that if the main volume doesn't have any signs of activity, then that's highly suspicious. Why are you carrying around a laptop that's mostly empty and hasn't been used in months? Why is it that despite seemingly not being used in months, there's physical signs of wear, like scratches or dust accumulation? If you do try to make the main volume seem "used", you run the risk of accidentally overwriting your hidden volume.
      - CGamesPlay 3mo ago
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

bigfatkitten 3mo ago

Even in places where you can’t be compelled to hand over a password, attempting to deceive the cops will get you thrown in prison just as reliably as destroying evidence.

Grimblewald 3mo ago
true, but in that scenario you're going to prison either way. If you legitimately use the dummy for daily driving and hidden for sensitive work, then it's better than nothing. Obviously a good alternative is a dummy device but it carries similar risks, and the best option is to simply not go to authoritarian shitholes like the USA. Thankfully I've been able to avoid/push for US folks visiting us instead, but honestly the alternatives are as bad. Its a shit situation where most reasonable actions carry real risks, its up to individuals to choose what is acceptable risk to them, but a dummy os you use as a daily driver for inconsequential work is, to me, an ideal midground.
AngryData 3mo ago
Meanwhile cops can and do regularly deceive and lie to citizen and not only don't face any consequences but actively benefit from it.
- tripleee 3mo ago
  I don't really see a problem with this assuming the deception is used to uncover crimes.
  - nkrisc 3mo ago
    Will the problem is that we’ve seen it’s not only used to uncover crimes. There’s plenty of empirical evidence of cops lying to lock up innocent people. One truly absurd case was lying to convince a man he killed his father, and extracted a murder confession for a victim who they knew wasn’t dead. https://people.com/thomas-perez-jr-murder-interrogation-11862514 https://people.com/thomas-perez-jr-murder-interrogation-1186...

teravor 3mo ago

this will likely fail as block devices aren't dumb anymore, the firmware state will out the hidden volume. counting on the laziness/unsophistication of an adversary isn't a great move. this problem may be solvable by a purpose-built abstraction where every write no matter what address will look identical to the firmware (naively, a randomized key-value map).

JSR_FDED 3mo ago
What does “block devices aren’t dumb anymore” mean?
- greyface- 3mo ago
  Modern SSDs are log-structured under the hood. The presentation to the host system as a random access block device is an abstraction on top of that, emulating the semantics of spinning rust. Inspecting the underlying log will reveal the location of the hidden area, even if it looks random when read linearly.
  - vlovich123 3mo ago
    I’m not so sure that log structure would reveal to you VeraCrypt style hidden volumes. It would only tell you about which blocks are allocated but the whole point is that VeraCrypt would allocate the whole space and within it have hidden space. You wouldn’t be able to infer (at least ethically, but you could lie) whether or not a hidden partition exists because you don’t know if the allocated block is present in the filesystem or was just allocated and never trimmed.
    - greyface- 3mo ago
      It would also give you information about the order in which blocks were written, and the historical state of the disk. Because of wear leveling, block allocation isn't just a one-time initial thing; the mappings between logical and physical address space are changing with each write.

bb88 3mo ago

This is always been the dumbest thing about "hidden volumes": It relies upon your adversary not knowing about veracrypt's hidden volume. Which BTW, is plainly ADVERTISED on the web site. The second he knows you have veracode, he will ask for the other encrypted volume. See also relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

red369 3mo ago
But Veracrypt can be used for encryption of a volume, without creating a hidden volume. I assume it would often be used this way. The $5 wrench decryption technique would be even more unpleasant if you hadn’t created a hidden volume, as there would be no way to prove you hadn’t. Should people be sure to never use Veracrypt volume encryption unless they create a hidden volume? I have trouble even thinking this way!
- bb88 3mo ago
  The $5 wrench isn't about breaking encryption. It's about breaking will power. If they achieve their goals great for them. If not they proved the second volume either didn't actually exist or your will power was stronger than the $5 wrench. Either way they're probably way more happy with the outcome than you would be. As long as the border your crossing doesn't respect the 4th Amendment, the best approach is to not carry anything incriminating across it, nor anything that may make you suspicious.

crooked-v 3mo ago

This seems like the kind of thing that would put US citizens in way more legal jeopardy than just using a secure phone with a long password, refusing to unlock it, and buying a new one if the officers involved confiscate it out of spite.

Cider9986 3mo ago

It's not possible afaict on phones because they use flash memory. https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html

__MatrixMan__ 3mo ago

I worry about approaches like this because maybe the forensics tool fills all available space and then clears it, noticing that this particular phone is an anomaly re: manufacturer published space = allegedly available space + size of known files If you're hiding something in "empty space" it won't behave like empty space when you try to fill it. I think we need to be stenographically smarter. Like if there's some mechanism of deduplicating blocks across volumes, then perhaps when given the special key you could temporarily render a volume whose parts are hidden in the data already occupied by the other volume and then just run it in memory so that a reboot clears it.

basilikum 3mo ago
That's not how VeraCrypt hidden volumes work. > If you're hiding something in "empty space" it won't behave like empty space when you try to fill it. Yes, it will. It will overwrite the hidden data. When you have a 1 TB drive that you encrypt with VeraCrypt using a hidden volume the following happens: You have an outer decoy volume. This volume is 1TB in size and works like any other VeraCrypt volume. You have a smaller, hidden inner volume with a different password. When you unlock this volume the following happens: Veracrypt tries to unlock the normal voume, but fails because the password is incorrect. It now tries to decrypt a secondary volume header at an offset. This header contains the layout for the hidden volume which is positioned inside the free space of the outer volume. So the position of the hidden volume is encrypted. Now when you want to plant decoy files in the outer volume you actually do the following: While unlocking the volume you enable the option for hidden volumes and now you enter both passwords. So VeraCrypt knows where the inner volume is located and how large it is so it will not overwrite it. VeraCrypt will show the adjusted smaller size for the outer volume. When you're in a situation where you are forced to give up your password: You tell them your decoy password. They open the outer decoy volume. It appears like any other VeraCrypt volume spanning the whole size of the disk. If they write any files to it that might overwrite parts of the hidden volume. Notably all standard VeraCrypt volumes principally feature the option of hidden volumes. You cannot proof that a VeraCrypt volume does not have a hidden volume (short of it being full in the first place). The user base of people not using hidden volumes gives the plausible deniability to the people who do. Which is worth knowing as this can get you in trouble in certain scenarios. There are some issues with this though: SSD wear leveling and especially TRIM. You must not TRIM the blocks of the hidden volume, which can reveal it as it shall appear as free space that would usually be trimmed. So disable TRIM, which is suspicious in itself. Though TRIM also leaks information about file layout even for normal volumes, so there is some plausibility left. But it's not ideal. This is not an issue with HDDs (maybe with SMR though). I don't remember exactly, but I think you can do statistical analysis on the layout of files inside the outer volume and deduct the existence of the hidden volume from this under certain circumstances. Essentially, in a normal volume the filesystem would have written this file to these blocks, but it didn't and chose other blocks instead. So there must have been a block layer translation that reroutes blocks from the hidden volume and these free blocks that should not be free must be the hidden volume. I'm not too sure that's really what it was about. 5$ wrench method. I suspect you are hiding certain information in this VeraCrypt volume. I torture you. You give me the password. The information is not in there. Either you do not have the information or you are lying and using a hidden volume. I continue to torture you for the second password on the chance that you're using a hidden volume. This is what I was about earlier when I said VeraCrypt can get you in trouble.