Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Going with that, encrypting files seems like a secret compartment in your suitcase. You are good to go if they don't find it, but maybe not so good to go if they do.
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Very true, that's where the steganography comes in.
So you've got your secret compartment in your suitcase (though maybe a better analogy is a locked compartment, it doesn't have to be secret at all in fact it's probably better if it isn't). You do have a legit reason to have that locked compartment; you have private files, work documents, etc that you don't want readable if you lose or someone happens to steal your laptop.
They search your laptop, find this file, and ask you to enter your password to unlock it so they can do what they want. If they really want to see my taxes and my pr0n collection, fine, I unlock it.
Now inside this locked compartment there's ANOTHER locked compartment, and this one IS secret. There's no way of detecting it though; it just appears as free space on the drive. If you do a statistical analysis of encrypted data, you'll see structure. If you do a statistical analysis of the hidden compartment though, you'll just see random noise, same as if you'd analyzed unused space on your hard drive.
And accessing that secret compartment is identical to accessing the locked one; but instead of entering "secretpassword", you enter "reallysecretpassword". They can't know it's there, so they can't compel you to produce the extra password that for all they know doesn't exist.