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by _cbsz 6024 days ago
Ditto. I'm a grad student studying security, and I'm not convinced that this is deniable. How will you deny the DV box (or even unlabeled camera & microphone) in your meeting area when the feds suddenly raid the place? How will you deny the private key on that USB drive you are very very careful to store securely, lest you lose the ability to view the video? I believe that history predicts that once the existing of these things have been proven to a court, you'll be either producing the passphrase or getting thrown in jail for contempt of court.

http://xkcd.com/538/

2 comments

Regarding the "private key on the USB drive", I think the USB drive contains their software. Your private key is typed in at a password prompt.

Regarding the "contempt of court" threat, they need to implement hidden volumes, like TrueCrypt does, and that will be addressed.

The password prompt is for a passphrase to unlock the private key. It's standard to encrypt the private key using the passphrase to provide some protection against the loss of the key.
but to some extent that's no different to the problem of having truecrypt (for example) installed on your computer - you have to explain that. of course, in the case of truecrypt you can have multiple (edit: hidden) volumes - i guess the equivalent here might be to have an "innocent" video that can be unencrypted. even then, though, it will be clear that the time isn't current, so if there is any "on" light, or disk activity on recording, that could be used as evidence that other data exist....