Editing Deniable encryption (section)

{{short description|Encryption techniques where an adversary cannot prove that the plaintext data exists}}{{Multiple issues|{{Primary sources|date=March 2024}}
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In [[cryptography]] and [[steganography]], plausibly '''deniable encryption''' describes [[encryption]] techniques where the existence of an encrypted file or message is deniable in the sense that an adversary cannot prove that the [[plaintext]] data exists.<ref>See http://www.schneier.com/paper-truecrypt-dfs.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140627184940/https://www.schneier.com/paper-truecrypt-dfs.html |date=2014-06-27 }}. Retrieved on 2013-07-26.</ref>

The users may [[plausible deniability|convincingly deny]] that a given piece of data is encrypted, or that they are able to decrypt a given piece of encrypted data, or that some specific encrypted data exists.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Chen |first1=Chen |last2=Chakraborti |first2=Anrin |last3=Sion |first3=Radu |date=2020 |title=INFUSE: Invisible plausibly-deniable file system for NAND flash |url=https://petsymposium.org/popets/2020/popets-2020-0071.php |url-status=live |journal=Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies |volume=2020 |issue=4 |pages=239–254 |doi=10.2478/popets-2020-0071 |issn=2299-0984 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208113349/https://petsymposium.org/popets/2020/popets-2020-0071.php |archive-date=2023-02-08 |access-date=2024-04-02 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Such denials may or may not be genuine. For example, it may be impossible to prove that the data is encrypted without the cooperation of the users. If the data is encrypted, the users genuinely may not be able to decrypt it. Deniable encryption serves to undermine an attacker's confidence either that data is encrypted, or that the person in possession of it can decrypt it and provide the associated plaintext.

In their pivotal 1996 paper, [[Ran Canetti]], [[Cynthia Dwork]], [[Moni Naor]], and [[Rafail Ostrovsky]] introduced the concept of deniable encryption, a cryptographic breakthrough that ensures privacy even under coercion. This concept allows encrypted communication participants to plausibly deny the true content of their messages. Their work lays the foundational principles of deniable encryption, illustrating its critical role in protecting privacy against forced disclosures. This research has become a cornerstone for future advancements in cryptography, emphasizing the importance of deniable encryption in maintaining communication security.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |author=Ran Canetti, Cynthia Dwork, Moni Naor, [[Rafail Ostrovsky]] |title=Advances in Cryptology – CRYPTO '97 |date=1996-05-10 |isbn=978-3-540-63384-6 |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |volume=1294 |pages=90&ndash;104 |chapter=Deniable Encryption |doi=10.1007/BFb0052229 |chapter-url=http://eprint.iacr.org/1996/002 |chapter-format=PostScript |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200824164510/https://eprint.iacr.org/1996/002 |archive-date=2020-08-24 |url-status=live |accessdate=2007-01-05}}</ref> The notion of deniable encryption was used by [[Julian Assange]] and [[Ralf Weinmann]] in the Rubberhose filesystem.<ref>See {{cite web |title=Rubberhose cryptographically deniable transparent disk encryption system |url=http://iq.org/~proff/rubberhose.org/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100915130330/http://iq.org/~proff/rubberhose.org/ |archive-date=2010-09-15 |accessdate=2010-10-21}}. Retrieved on 2009-07-22.</ref><ref name=":1" />