Malleable Encryption
Some in-transit encrypted messaging suites, such as Off-the-Record Messaging, offer malleable encryption which gives the participants plausible deniability of their conversations. While malleable encryption is not technically "deniable encryption" in that its ciphertexts do not decrypt into multiple plaintexts, its deniability refers to the inability of an adversary to prove that the participants had a conversation or said anything in particular.
This is achieved by the fact that all information necessary to forge messages is appended to the encrypted messages – if an adversary is able to create digitally authentic messages in a conversation (see HMAC), he is also able to forge messages in the conversation. This is used in conjunction with perfect forward secrecy to assure that the compromise of encryption keys of individual messages does not compromise additional conversations or messages.
Read more about this topic: Deniable Encryption
Famous quotes containing the word malleable:
“I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)