🔒 Plausible Deniability

Last updated on : 2021-06-17

Instructions

What you should know

Plausible deniability means that if you are forced to reveal your passwords / devices / everything, there is no way for the people interrogating you to be sure that you haven't already given them everything, in other words, you can fall short of revealing everything, because it is plausible (i.e. believable) that you have nothing more to give (i.e. you deny to have anything else). Compare this with the password on your laptop - you can't reasonably deny that you have access to the laptop, or if the interrogator finds your encrypted vault, it is not reasonable to claim that you do not know how to get in. So plausible deniability works by giving your interrogators access to a hidden set of files... but a different set then the ones you are protecting! But there is no way of knowing that you haven't shown them your actual hidden files.

You can think of Plausible deniability as being a secret compartment within your suitcase - even if you lock the suitcase, and are forced to open it. There is no way of knowing that there is another locked compartment inside the locked suitcase!

Though it's also similar to operating a 'clean' Facebook page which doesn't have any politically sensitive content posted to it - if the account is very empty / new / doesn't have any friends, then it is no longer plausible that it is your actual Facebook page. Similar with the 'clean' hidden set of files, you would need to put something worth hiding (for example photos of your family, or important work files ... which aren't so sensitive) for it to be believed!

For a more detailed reading, see the WikiPedia article.