
That is not generally the case in the UK, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act makes it a criminal offense to not surrender encryption keys when asked. In the US, you cannot be forced to hand over encryption keys. Your assumptions in 1 are just false in many places. That's the whole idea of plausible deniability there is no technical way to prove that there is more encrypted data.
Why is veracrypt free free#
There is no way to tell that a hidden volume exists because the hidden volume is indistinguishable from free space (which is why veracrypt still shows 500mb free space when you mount the outer volume). If you open the outer volume, even veracrypt does not know that the hidden one exists. How does this work? The idea is that you're never supposed to write to the outer volume once you have created it, as doing so could corrupt your hidden volume. The outer volume will still show 500mb of free space. Completely fill the hidden volume with files. Here is one such case:įor your second question, try it out yourself: Create a 500mb outer volume, containing a 300mb hidden volume. Whether they have the authority to do so is a subject of current debate, especially in the US where there is supposed to be protection against self-incrimination. US and many European countries), there have been lots of cases where courts have forced people to supply their decryption keys because it is deemed relevant to an investigation. It's not super realistic, but definitely possible.Īnd even if it is indeed a government, not all countries have privacy protections or require reasonable suspicion. For all you know, some random thief could grab your laptop while you are using it, notice a VeraCrypt file sitting on the desktop, and pull out a gun and force you to decrypt it. Neither of those assumptions are necessarily true. That government actually respects citizen privacy and requires some sort of reasonable suspicion before it can force people to give up encryption keys.The attacker is a government of some sort.Your first question is really a legal one, and you seem to be assuming two things:
