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I doubt that would cut it. If the police are expecting you to reveal spreadsheets detailing your real estate fraud, and your deniable encryption system outputs

I doubt that would cut it. If the police are expecting you to reveal spreadsheets detailing your real estate fraud, and your deniable encryption system outputs some embarrassing fetish porn, the police are going to ignore the porn and demand your other key. Why should they believe you about the embarrassing files being the real or only reason you are using deniable encryption? Why would they not simply assume that you put those files there as part of an attempt to develop a plausible excuse? The real problem here is that, in a way, using deniable encryption is itself incriminating unless everyone uses it -- and we do not live in such a world. Unlike other cryptosystems, it is hard to develop a "legitimate" reason for using deniable encryption, as it has no particular advantage in protecting data from criminals over non-deniable encryption.

dllthomas 13y ago
It's all about reducing the likelihood. Keeping my fetish porn hidden behind legitimate looking encrypted whatever is not an absurd story, so a chunk of the probability moves that way, leaving it correspondingly less likely that the deniable-encryption-supporting encrypted file here also contains the thing they were looking for. Whether it's less likely enough depends on a whole ton of things.
hamburglar 13y ago
> [deniable encryption] has no particular advantage in protecting data from criminals over non-deniable encryption. Sure it does, in that the criminals can't see the attack target or even be sure one exists.
PeterisP 13y ago
The purpose and usage of deniable encryption is not for police to stop demanding the other key. They may or may not stop, you can't control that. However, if you simply refuse to provide any more keys (regardless if such keys exists); then their only recourse is to try and convict you for not providing the key - and there, on a trial by a layman jury, the plausibility of whatever excuse you [didn't] provide would matter a great deal.

dllthomas 13y ago

It's all about reducing the likelihood. Keeping my fetish porn hidden behind legitimate looking encrypted whatever is not an absurd story, so a chunk of the probability moves that way, leaving it correspondingly less likely that the deniable-encryption-supporting encrypted file here also contains the thing they were looking for. Whether it's less likely enough depends on a whole ton of things.

hamburglar 13y ago

> [deniable encryption] has no particular advantage in protecting data from criminals over non-deniable encryption. Sure it does, in that the criminals can't see the attack target or even be sure one exists.

PeterisP 13y ago

The purpose and usage of deniable encryption is not for police to stop demanding the other key. They may or may not stop, you can't control that. However, if you simply refuse to provide any more keys (regardless if such keys exists); then their only recourse is to try and convict you for not providing the key - and there, on a trial by a layman jury, the plausibility of whatever excuse you [didn't] provide would matter a great deal.