>You might be penalized by a judge for failing to disclose your "other password" regardless of whether or not it actually exists
Judges can penalize only if the existence of password is beyond reasonable doubt (if it is "free world" we are talking about). Give me one real world example of a person getting penalized for hiding the "other second password".
>A customs officer might refuse to allow you to bring your laptop across the border until you enter your "other password"
Again, please give me one real world example for that. I don't think it has ever happened, yet. Enter the decoy password and customs officer is happy.
>It is much easier to claim to have forgotten one password than to try to maintain an innocent partition, so you might as well just do that.
People DO get jailed for that. "I forget the password" doesn't help if you have an encrypted partition because it is beyond reasonable doubt that you have a password. This is why deniable encryption works in field, it is opportunistic. You can give away the decoy password and get rid of the suspicion. Until there is a real world example against it, I am convinced that it works.
Situation today:
Non-deniable encryption:
Torture happy country: You are screwed anyway. With or without giving your password.
Non torture country: You get penalized for non disclosure.
Deniable encryption:
Torture happy country: You are screwed anyway. With or without giving your password.
Non torture country: There is a good chance that you can get away by giving the decoy password.
Deniable encryption is not a silver bullet, your OS can leak the existence of it in logs if you are not using FDE, usage errors, malware etc can mess it up.
Torture or judge claiming the other password out of blue is NOT an argument against it though, because you are screwed with or without giving all the passwords if it ever happens.
Judges can penalize only if the existence of password is beyond reasonable doubt (if it is "free world" we are talking about). Give me one real world example of a person getting penalized for hiding the "other second password".
>A customs officer might refuse to allow you to bring your laptop across the border until you enter your "other password"
Again, please give me one real world example for that. I don't think it has ever happened, yet. Enter the decoy password and customs officer is happy.
>It is much easier to claim to have forgotten one password than to try to maintain an innocent partition, so you might as well just do that.
People DO get jailed for that. "I forget the password" doesn't help if you have an encrypted partition because it is beyond reasonable doubt that you have a password. This is why deniable encryption works in field, it is opportunistic. You can give away the decoy password and get rid of the suspicion. Until there is a real world example against it, I am convinced that it works.
Situation today:
Non-deniable encryption:
Torture happy country: You are screwed anyway. With or without giving your password.
Non torture country: You get penalized for non disclosure.
Deniable encryption:
Torture happy country: You are screwed anyway. With or without giving your password.
Non torture country: There is a good chance that you can get away by giving the decoy password.
Deniable encryption is not a silver bullet, your OS can leak the existence of it in logs if you are not using FDE, usage errors, malware etc can mess it up.
Torture or judge claiming the other password out of blue is NOT an argument against it though, because you are screwed with or without giving all the passwords if it ever happens.