"The fact that they haven't gotten what they're after yet is not evidence that you have more keys, because it's indistinguishable from the case where you've sim

"The fact that they haven't gotten what they're after yet is not evidence that you have more keys, because it's indistinguishable from the case where you've simply already deleted the files." Perhaps, but then why not just provide no key at all and rely on the semantic security of the cryptosystem? If you need to give the court a reason why you are not producing the secret key, you can always claim to have forgotten it. How does deniable encryption improve over that, if in the end it comes down to indistinguishability? "I'm expecting them to realize that with a well-designed deniable system, they can't tell the difference between you being uncooperative and there being nothing incriminating to find." OK, but the same is true of non-deniable encryption when you say, "I forgot the key!" Anything that might lead them to believe otherwise would be equally applicable to deniable encryption. To put it another way, what is the difference between saying, "I only have this key," and saying, "I cannot remember the key at all?" In either case, you need to convince the police that there is no incriminating key they can demand from you.