Remix.run Logo
rendx a day ago

I remember a conversation with a political activist refugee. They were in a group of people who got checked at the border, and were asked to unlock their laptops. The border security personnel then proceeded to do a short inspection of the visible systems. They all used Veracrypt's Hidden Operating System functionality, and while it would be trivially detectable, the border security did not, so they got through without problems. If they had refused to "unlock", or used a duress passphrase that wiped the system without presenting a dummy version, they would have been held, possibly for a very long time, and definitely not allowed to exit.

Moral of the story: Different contexts allow for different solutions. It is a sign of false privilege to make assumptions, and not let the user decide. An argument can be made in terms of priority of implementation, but not in terms of "pointlessness". The often used argument of "false security" can be addressed by warnings; yes, some people may not understand the implications, but you do not need to make their own (bad/good) choices for them; that's paternalism, not care.

In the real world, where thanks to my political work I am in contact with many people who had to endure real-world security checks, police raids, investigations, and so on, in all the cases no proper (imaginary) forensic analysis was performed. People make mistakes and remain uneducated -- on both sides. The "But NSA!" argument brought forward typically by white techbros kills a lot of useful technology before it even exists, which is unfortunate for those that would actually benefit from it, and when asked would tell you so. It's also not either/or in reality: In many situations, it will buy you time (while e.g. your lawyer may try to get you and your devices out of the situation), and even if they find out you were trying to fool them, they may give you another chance, and then you can still opt for the wipe code. It makes a huge psychological difference to have multiple options and feel in control.

lollobomb 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, 100% this. Plausible deniability for everyone does not hurt everyone, it rather protects everyone, even if you don't use it.