Even pre-tech there was lots of bad shit you could do (sugar in the gas tank), but we didn't (for the most part). Now bad shit is the norm and if you don't buy into my product I will fuck you up, motherfucker!! Def not Marketing 101.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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I'll stick to a Veracrypt full disk encryption with a hidden partition. All the benefits of a duress password, none of the data deletion that gets you V&
PSA: Veracrypt recommends against using hidden volumes on USB flash drives (source)
They don't recommend against it... It's a detailed guideline on doing it successfully.
If he had only spent an extra $0.50 and added a Microchip 608c (https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/atecc608c) to the design, then you wouldn't have to deal with cleartext passwords in files. Instead, you could have elliptic-curve, asymmetric public-key encryption.
So you make a competitor then and I’ll buy it
Nifty. I couldn't see a practical use for myself but, it's cool none the less.
Very useful for getting any sort of private data through an airport that does not respect privacy. For example any US airport...
No it isn't. It will be treated like any other drive where encryption is nothing new. In fact, to look for a text file and then make something accessible means it is likely much easier to detect that something is off about it than regular encryption that just looks like random data. Whether it tries to hide it's true storage capacity or boots its own internal OS to present storage, people often think they're being clever when really they're just making themselves stand out.
You misunderstood what is seen or how it works.
When the drive is checked, you can see files and whatever on what appears to be an 8GB flash drive.
You have to add the specifically worded txt file into that drive before the hidden drive shows up.
Do you think TSA/CBP is going to check the flash data lines to see if the MCU is scanning the flash internally?
This isn't a standard USB flash controller... You would need to break the casing and physically probe it to figure out that something was off as far as I can tell. It's not like the MCU broadcasts that it is scanning to the USB port.
You would have to be hitting the stick pretty hard, not just a normal file scan to notice the timing being slightly too long in a small portion of the scans. The bigger problem would be that the flash drive would be brand-recognizable if it ends up being mass produced that they might auto-confiscate it, and of course the default file that it searches for being known.
If I got it right, you could easily detect this drive by just creating password.txt. as the article says it creation is intercepted and skipped. Hence if there is no password.txt afterwards, you know what you're dealing with. Still, you have to know this AND care.
It's only skipping if your password matches. Otherwise it'll just be a normal file.
Ah okay, so then I retract my statement and better my reading-skills 😁
It looks for a string "password:xyz" bring written to any file, where xyz is the password. If you get the password wrong it'll just write the file normally
Ah okay, so then I retract my statement and better my reading-skills 😁
No worries, I had to read stuff outside of the articles to get that information
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You are yapping your ass off. This is a hardware mod, not a software package. Its literally a custom storage controller chip that only physically unlocks the secret storage once it detects a certain key file on the decoy storage. They would have to xray the drive individually at close range with high resolution and know a lot about electronics to even come close to figuring out that something is different.
How would it be detected? It seems like the password detection and decryption is happening at the hardware level, and they take steps to have it show up as nothing more than a standard drive. I'm not an expert on this stuff though.
Airport forensic team can't flag an encrypted drive it can't detect.
The article talks about this.
Saving important documents as an emergency backup without worrying about it getting stolen. I guess the hidden partition adds another layer against someone who might want to try and brute force it
How is this better than a Veracrypt hidden partition on a standard thumb drive?
IIRC Veracrypt is easier to detect since it does some trickery with the filesystem and software while this has 2 memory chips and one is phisically disconnected then it scan for a string that looks like "password:1234" inside a file called "password.txt" at every write and if the password is correct it will connect the chip again, so it's virtually undetectable unless you crack open the USB stick and know what you are looking at (which is an highly unrealistic scenario for an airport unless you are in a country that's in a war period)
Not true. Veracrypt's hidden file system is random data on a preexisting partition that uses no software. You can only detect it if you install Veracrypt and guess the password.
Why not just use veracrypt?
That's what I would go with if I was inclined. Create a volume the size of the drive and add a hidden volume with a different password within like we've been doing for years (decades at this point maybe almost).
I would upload encrypt file somewhere and download it when needed. If you're worried someone will actually access your USB stick looking for encrypted data, why carry it at all? It's cool if you want to pretend you're a spy or something but it's not very practical.
That's assuming that wherever you are going to or coming from has an internet connection. It's likely that there will be a connection, but it's still not a guarantee. And if there is a connection, the size of the files you're carrying may make using that connection impractical.
Yes, but you can just carry encrypted hard drive with you. Hiding encrypted data is useful pretty much only for legal reasons. You want to take it across border and are worried TSA agent will force you to decrypt it or something. What is safer in that case? Carrying a USB stick with hidden encrypted partition or not carrying anything at all and downloading the data later? I would say the latter. Smuggling encrypted data through custom checks into a war zone with limited internet access is the cool but unlikely spy games scenario I was talking about. Encrypted microSD card would be even more secure in that case.
to a war zone? such inspections are done not only in unlikely scenarious like when going to "a war zone"
They'd probably just confincate the drive if it's obviously encrypted.
I guess you might just want to carry all your passwords in there, but then generally the password file itself is encrypted so I don't see the point.
that's like saying "password managers require a password so I don't see the point"
That is pretty much what I said yeah
Vault is visible and therefore obvious. If you need to be discreet, this sounds useful.
That hides another volume inside another VeraCrypt volume, so it's obvious it's not a normal drive
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Does it actually do anything if i 'dd' entire disk? id be curious how compatible this is with linux
I mean, presumably this is all device-side on the stick.
It mounts the two partitions separately, and presents them separately. It doesn't need to pass through the actual SD card to the host system at all.
If you dd the decoy partition you only ever see the decoy partition. Because the decoy partition is presented as a complete device, not just a partition, to the host system.
Why would this be incompatible with linux? If this is done the way it seems it is done, it's not a filesystem trick.
It's two partitions on one SD card being presented as two separate devices by the microcontroller that has actual direct access.
The real vulnerability would be that you could just crack it open to find the SD card.
you could just crack it open to find the SD card.
Funny enough, had the same thing once in an aliexpress usb.
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