Nifty. I couldn't see a practical use for myself but, it's cool none the less.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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Very useful for getting any sort of private data through an airport that does not respect privacy. For example any US airport...
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(18 replies)
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
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
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.
They'd probably just confincate the drive if it's obviously encrypted.
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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"
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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
Ah yes, certainly easier and more convenient to boot into a live OS or hidden OS every time you need to mount a hidden volume (per VeraCrypt's recommended guideline), instead of just using the hardware from OPs post.
you don't have to boot into some special live OS to mount the hidden volume. It can be mounted just like a normal encrypted volume.
Those recommendations are for protecting data you want to stay a secret; it would also apply to unlocking this fancy USB drive, as a best practice.
The USB still has advantage in that no one will compel you to unencrypt a drive that they don't realize is encrypted, which can be a pretty significant advantage depending on who you're hiding the information from, or why.
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.
A VeraCrypt volume resides on a device/filesystem that utilizes a wear-leveling mechanism (e.g. a flash-memory SSD or USB flash drive). A copy of (a fragment of) the VeraCrypt volume may remain on the device. Therefore, do not store hidden volumes on such devices/filesystems.
I understand that page is a bit dense, so I'm quoting the relevant text from the above source.
They make a very poor job of highlighting something so important in a dense page detailing how to do what they recommend you don't.
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.
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.
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.
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