5 ms·

I am not an expert in infosec but plausible deniability looks like a better strategy here.See http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability http://www.

I am not an expert in infosec but plausible deniability looks like a better strategy here.See http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

sharjeel 17y ago
Or maybe they should have a feature in TrueCrypt to allow "Fake Keys". You use your actual keys to unlock your data. You use fake keys to see pics of britney spears
- dryicerx 17y ago
  Well if that feature is well know, that defeats the purpose. It will only work if you roll your own implementation of it (security through obscurity a bit).
  - derefr 17y ago
    How does it defeat the purpose? If an encrypted volume can have any number of stored "divisions," each with a different key, how can they prove that you're holding out on them once you've given them N keys? They know there's a possibility that you may have something extra hidden in the file, but that's not the same thing at all as knowing that there's definitely a file that you refuse to decrypt.
    - patio11 17y ago
      how can they prove that you're holding out on them They'll bring in a forensic investigator, who will explain to the judge/jury that TrueCrypt has a feature designed to be used by criminals to subvert the judicial process. Then, he will present the results of his investigation, which will show your drive to be consistent with you using that "plausible deniability" thing. Then, he will introduce external evidence that says you almost certainly have, I don't know, kiddie porn -- look, we can prove he downloaded it, here are the ISP logs, and here are the 47 intercepted posts which use the same nickname he used for his online banking, and here is the previous complaint against him for lascivious comments made to a young lady on Facebook. That will probably be good enough to convict you of possession. Circumstantial, yes, but so are most convictions.
      - derefr 17y ago
        I guess what would really be necessary is for all operating systems to build in plausible deniability by default. Then there wouldn't be a "circumstance" for the circumstantial evidence to pertain to, since there would be no way to have a computer without the possibility of there being something permanently hidden inside it.
      - weavejester 17y ago
        As far as I'm aware, there's no external difference between a normal Truecrypt volume and one with a hidden volume. If you could find further evidence (like download records) you could convict them using that evidence, but I doubt you'd be able to convict anyone if all you had was a hunch that they were using a hidden volume.
tsally 17y ago
I was thinking the same thing. It'd be really nice to get some of true crypt's functionality worked into the more popular Linux distributions. Full disk encryption is dead simple, but I'm not familiar with efforts to include more sophisticated crpyto functionality. Anyone care to enlighten me?

sharjeel 17y ago

Or maybe they should have a feature in TrueCrypt to allow "Fake Keys". You use your actual keys to unlock your data. You use fake keys to see pics of britney spears

dryicerx 17y ago
Well if that feature is well know, that defeats the purpose. It will only work if you roll your own implementation of it (security through obscurity a bit).
- derefr 17y ago
  How does it defeat the purpose? If an encrypted volume can have any number of stored "divisions," each with a different key, how can they prove that you're holding out on them once you've given them N keys? They know there's a possibility that you may have something extra hidden in the file, but that's not the same thing at all as knowing that there's definitely a file that you refuse to decrypt.
  - patio11 17y ago
    how can they prove that you're holding out on them They'll bring in a forensic investigator, who will explain to the judge/jury that TrueCrypt has a feature designed to be used by criminals to subvert the judicial process. Then, he will present the results of his investigation, which will show your drive to be consistent with you using that "plausible deniability" thing. Then, he will introduce external evidence that says you almost certainly have, I don't know, kiddie porn -- look, we can prove he downloaded it, here are the ISP logs, and here are the 47 intercepted posts which use the same nickname he used for his online banking, and here is the previous complaint against him for lascivious comments made to a young lady on Facebook. That will probably be good enough to convict you of possession. Circumstantial, yes, but so are most convictions.
    - derefr 17y ago
      I guess what would really be necessary is for all operating systems to build in plausible deniability by default. Then there wouldn't be a "circumstance" for the circumstantial evidence to pertain to, since there would be no way to have a computer without the possibility of there being something permanently hidden inside it.
    - weavejester 17y ago
      As far as I'm aware, there's no external difference between a normal Truecrypt volume and one with a hidden volume. If you could find further evidence (like download records) you could convict them using that evidence, but I doubt you'd be able to convict anyone if all you had was a hunch that they were using a hidden volume.

tsally 17y ago

I was thinking the same thing. It'd be really nice to get some of true crypt's functionality worked into the more popular Linux distributions. Full disk encryption is dead simple, but I'm not familiar with efforts to include more sophisticated crpyto functionality. Anyone care to enlighten me?