Shufflecake is a tool for Linux that allows to create multiple hidden volumes on a storage device in such a way that it is very difficult, even under forensic inspection, to prove the existence of such volumes. This is useful for people whose freedom of expression is threatened by repressive authorities or dangerous criminal organizations, in particular: whistleblowers, investigative journalists, and activists for human rights in oppressive regimes.
You can consider Shufflecake a “spiritual successor” of tools such as TrueCrypt and VeraCrypt. It works natively on Linux, it supports any filesystem of choice, and can concurrently manage multiple nested volumes per device, so to make deniability of the existence of these partitions really plausible.
The three operating principles of Shufflecake are:
- 1 device = multiple (concurrently usable) volumes;
- 1 volume = 1 password = 1 “secrecy level”;
- unlocking a volume also unlocks all those of lesser secrecy level.
Volumes are password-protected, and embedded in the underlying device as data slices which are indistinguishable from random noise without the proper password. A Shufflecake-initialized device does not have cleartext headers, and is indistinguishable from random noise when not decrypted.
Up to 15 ordered Shufflecake volumes can be created on a single device, with the implicit assumption that “lower-order” volumes (e.g. layer 0) are less secret than “higher-order” ones (e.g. layer 3). Shufflecake is designed in such a way that it chains volumes in a backwards-linked list: volume i “points to” (contains the key of) volume i-1. This way, providing the key of volume i allows this tool to traverse the list and also automatically open volumes 0 through i-1 (besides volume i).
This is free and open source software.
Website: codeberg.org/shufflecake/shufflecake-c
Support:
Developer: Benjamin Voisin, Elia Anzuoni, Nagravision Sàrl, Tommaso Gagliardoni
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Shufflecake is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Disk Encryption Tools | |
|---|---|
| VeraCrypt | Strong disk encryption software |
| loop-AES | Encrypt disk partitions, removable media, swap space and other devices |
| dm-crypt | Transparent disk encryption subsystem |
| GnuPG | GNU Privacy Guard - implementation of the OpenPGP standard |
| GocryptFS | Encrypted overlay filesystem written in Go |
| cryptsetup | Configures encrypted block devices |
| Tomb | System for file encryption |
| Shufflecake | Create multiple hidden volumes |
| zuluCrypt | Feature rich solution for hard drive encryption |
| cryptmount | Managing encrypted file systems |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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