HiddenVM – Use any desktop OS without leaving a trace

I’m not following what this gives you that Veracrypt's inbuilt hidden+decoy OS feature doesn't already? It seems they require you to manually set up a veracrypt hidden partition for anything to be "hidden" anyway. How is booting your encrypted partition in a VM within Tails more secure than booting it directly?

Nice one. I’ve been using Veracrypt for many years now, after the whole Truecrypt fiasco. Just one friendly advice… always have a decoy partition or decoy OS, otherwise it seems very suspicious to have a disk filled with random data ;-)

You might also want to have a look at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;shufflecake.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;shufflecake.net&#x2F;</a><p>The current state is far from usable, but the final goal would be to have multiple nested &quot;hidden OSes&quot; that can be booted and managed concurrently, depending on the provided password.

You can get microsd cards and even nanosd card that are so small that hiding somewhere on your person is easy.<p>Encrypt everything you need on it.<p>They are, should it be required, easy to quickly and discreetly swallow as a last resort. (To get rid of it. I have no idea what would happen to a nano sd card travelling through your body, but I presume that it, or at least the ability to read the data on it, would be destroyed.<p>Then carry a regular laptop with you, with all the regular applications and regular behavior of them. Boring.<p>Using tails as the main operating system on a computer you fear might be inspected by customs or secret agents is screaming:<p>&quot;I have something to hide and you cant find it&quot;

A big Show HN thread from four years ago:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22492343">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22492343</a>

Why is there so much “branding” to Tails?<p>I feel like all of tails could simply be a short bash script that uses “debootstrap” to stage a Debian installation and then make it into a squashfs image that is mounted with overlayFS and a tmpfs (which is like a 3-line addition to the main “init” script).<p>(And yes, I’ve done this before. It’s not hard)<p>Instead they have a very fancy website and provide binary images without really showing how it works…<p>Not trying to belittle what they did, I’m sure that took a lot of work.<p>Just don’t understand the current fads… I feel like they’re trying a little too hard to sell a free product…

&gt; complicated apt-get update wizardry that achieves our VirtualBox-installing breakthrough.<p>yikes.

<p><pre><code> A CRYPTO NERD&#x27;S IMAGINATION: HIS LAPTOP&#x27;S ENCRYPTED. LET&#x27;S BUILD A MILLION-DOLLAR CLUSTER TO CRACK IT. NO GOOD! IT&#x27;S 4096-BIT RSA! BLAST! OUR EVIL PLAN IS FOILED!&quot; </code></pre> ----<p><pre><code> WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN: HIS LAPTOP&#x27;S ENCRYPTED. DRUG HIM AND HIT HIM WITH THIS $5 WRENCH UNTIL HE TELLS US THE PASSWORD. </code></pre> Note1: xkcd&#x2F;538<p>Note2: I&#x27;m missing images on hacker news. I understand why they are absent here though

&quot;The laptop probably has a HiddenVM. Drug and hit the person with this 5$ wrench until we get access.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;538&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;538&#x2F;</a>

See also: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;IncognitoIceman&#x2F;HiddenVM">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;IncognitoIceman&#x2F;HiddenVM</a><p>Unfortunately, it looks like this version is no longer maintained.<p>&quot;HiddenVM is a futuristic tool powered by KVM designed to combine the powerful amnesic nature of Tails and the impenetrable design of Whonix with the unbreakable strength of Veracrypt.&quot;

this is quite secure but not against thermorectal cryptoanalysis though

See also: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.qubes-os.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.qubes-os.org&#x2F;</a>

&gt; Imagine you&#x27;re entering a country at the airport. The border agents seize your laptop and force you to unlock it<p>If this concerned me I would just wipe the drive and&#x2F;or factory reset the device before travelling, and restore it later, rather than try to experimentally figure out what games I can and can&#x27;t play with the customs authorities.

I&#x27;d be more concerned about what they could plant on my machine versus what they find on it.