On 02/26/2012 11:35 AM, Jon Callas wrote:
On Feb 25, 2012, at 3:18 PM, Kevin W. Wall wrote:
On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 2:50 AM, Jon Callas<[email protected]>
wrote:
I asked them about the case where someone has TrueCrypt but
doesn't have a hidden volume, what would happen to someone
doesn't have one? Their response was, "Why would you do a dumb
thing like that? The whole point of TrueCrypt is to have a hidden
volume, and I suppose if you don't have one, you'll be sitting in
a room by yourself for a long time. We're not *stupid*."
That's good to know then. I never had anything *that* secret to
protect, so never bothered to create a hidden volume. I just wanted
a good, cheap encrypted volume solution where I could keep my tax
records and other sensitive personal info. And if law enforcement
ever requested the password for that, I wouldn't hesitate to hand
it over if they had the proper subpoena / court order. But I'd be
SOL when then went looking for a second hidden volume simply
because one doesn't exist. Guess if I ever go out of the country
with my laptop, I'd just better securely wipe that partion.
Or just put something in it that you can show.
So everyone who now has a hidden 2nd Truecrypt partition with
incriminating things in it needs to make it their hidden 3rd partition
and in the hidden 2nd partition instead store things which are merely
embarrassing.
Except that as it is stipulated that the captors are "not stupid", we
must assume they are perfectly rational actors who will have worked out
this strategy too.
I bet there could be an interesting paper with a game-theoretic analysis
of this "traveler's dilemma". Maybe it's been written?
On each round, a traveler with hidden encrypted volumes which he prefers
not to disclose must cross a border in which he passes through a "civil
rights-free zone", placing himself under the control of a jailer. At the
beginning of each round, the traveler selects the number of hidden
volumes he will carry from some set of predefined 4-tuples: (cost/payoff
to traveler if disclosed/not disclosed, cost/payoff to jailer if not
disclosed/disclosed)
The round proceeds in turns. On each turn, the jailer may elect to pay a
cost to imprison the traveler for another turn, or let the traveler go
free. On each turn, the traveler selects to disclose some (or none) of
any undisclosed volumes he has remaining. The round ends when the
traveler goes free.
What is the optimal strategy for the jailer? For the traveler?
How does it make sense to set up the initial costs?
- Marsh
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