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Re: Encrypted files and the 5th amendment


From: Louis McCoy <louie.mccoy () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:13:26 -0400

The fixed-disk method that TruCrypt uses will encrypt a static size of the
disk, and remain unchanged, regardless of the size of the files inside. I
have a file of around 2gb that I use, and currently only holds around 4mb of
data. Of course, you could look at that and say "clearly there must be more
data" but there isn't, since the remainder of the space is just encrypted
"filler" data. Really easy, with TruCrypt, to have "hidden" data in there,
and it becomes visible only when you use the different passphrase to
decrypt.

lm

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Tim <tim-security () sentinelchicken org>wrote:

The point is that it's essentially impossible to whether there's any
encrypted partition present (or how many).

Really?  Even if investigators look at the partition sizes?

Once they force you to decrypt the "clean" partition, they'll be able
to see how big it is.  If it doesn't encompass the whole disk's size,
more or less, then they'll know something is missing.  How does
TruCrypt prevent that?  Seems to be very difficult, but maybe you can
enlighten me on that.

tim

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