On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 01:25:48PM +0200, Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote: > Arno Wagner <arno@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [...] > > If you want more, use TrueCrypt, but I would be very careful > > with plausible deniablility anyways. Your protection is primarily > > that they cannot force you to give up your keys. If you live > > in a country were they can, I propose to very seriously consider > > leaving that country for good. See also http://xkcd.com/538/ > > That's exactly the reason for plausible deniability. You know they are > able to force you to give them your key(s), so you prepare some keys to > give them (along with some data which makes some sense to be encrypted) > and the system gives you the ability to plausibly deny the existence of > more keys. Just in the hope they stop cutting your extremities after the > 6th finger because you convinced them. I would say plausible deniability has the potential to make them continue even after you have given them everything, after all you could have hidden more with the "plausible deniability thing". On a related note, there has been a lot of evidence that torture does not work (foremost the French in Aleria, that failed to find the headquaters of the resistance for years, despite torturing resistance fighters). For one thing people are likely to give you false information. This leads me to the conclusion that most torturers and their bosses are actually not interested in information, but in the cruelty itself. So I would say that plausible deniability is of very low value in practice and may have potential negative value in some situations. With plausible deniability they are sure to torture you untill you are completely broken, while without it, you can give them everything in a way they can actually verify. It is possible that you have information that still merits being protected under these circumstances, but I don't. Plausible deniability basically assumes the life of the person having the key is worth less than the information. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno@xxxxxxxxxxx GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans If it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of "news" is "something that hardly ever happens." -- Bruce Schneier _______________________________________________ dm-crypt mailing list dm-crypt@xxxxxxxx http://www.saout.de/mailman/listinfo/dm-crypt
