Plausible Deniability - Houdini data security

"Plausible Deniability" is a term used by secret services and espionage and dates back to around WWII. It refers to being in the position to deny the possession of information and knowledge to a credible extend. 

For travel though specially Middle-East countries, even the possession of a digitized map on a computer can mean trouble. Many digital maps normally available in Europe can cause a lot of trouble when found by customs, police or military personnel. Some of the best terrain maps are from military (air force) origin, and are freely available in any respected cartograph shop.

To avoid trouble at the border - searching the disk of a laptop - TrueCrypt has the option to create encrypted archives with a "Plausible Deniability" option. This means the TrueCrypt archive has 2 parts, the normal "encrypted" part and the hidden "encrypted" part. With 2 passwords either the "normal part" or the "hidden part" can be openend. While TrueCrypt archives are static in size, it's impossible to see wehter there's more information in the archive than shown.