Huang: The Plausibly Deniable DataBase

Andrew 'bunnie' Huang introduces PDDB, adatabase meant to allow users to (plausibly) deny the existence of specificdata within it.

Precursoris a device we designed to keep secrets, such as passwords,wallets, authentication tokens, contacts and text messages. We alsowant it to offer plausible deniability in the face of an attackerthat has unlimited access to a physical device, including its rootkeys, and a set of broadly known to exist" passwords, such as thescreen unlock password and the update signing password. We furtherassume that an attacker can take a full, low-level snapshot of theentire contents of the FLASH memory, including memory marked asreserved or erased. Finally, we assume that a device, in the worstcase, may be subject to repeated, intrusive inspections of thisnature.

We created the PDDB (Plausibly Deniable DataBase) to address thisthreat scenario.