Tauri

Developer Builds Password Manager with Plausible Deniability Using Argon2id and XChaCha20-Poly1305

A Java backend developer rewrote a personal password manager originally built with Electron and React, migrating it to Tauri and Rust while redesigning its storage to support plausible deniability. The new implementation derives keys with Argon2id using a single per-install salt and encrypts files with XChaCha20-Poly1305, storing only random 32-character hex filenames without any headers or magic bytes. Multiple decoy vaults of identical size are created automatically for every user, and all files in the folder receive synchronized timestamps to eliminate metadata-based identification of the active vault. History and sync data are stored as additional encrypted files of the same format, making it impossible to distinguish real from decoy vaults from the filesystem alone. The approach mirrors VeraCrypt hidden volumes but operates on ordinary files and folders, with the explicit goal of providing deniability when a user is compelled to reveal a password.

RCQ Messenger Duress PIN Flaw Gave Full Access to Real Database on Android

RCQ developers discovered that their duress PIN feature on Android used the same dataKey for both real and decoy accounts, allowing anyone entering the panic code to unlock the entire message history. The original design aimed to present a believable second account but resulted in the decoy PIN acting as a master key rather than a protective boundary. On iOS the implementation was cryptographically separate yet suffered from contact wiping that made the decoy mode look suspiciously empty. After review the team switched both platforms to independent random keys, generated realistic conversation histories, and disabled network features in decoy mode to avoid server-side linkage. Legacy slots created before the fix remain marked as such and require users to set a new decoy PIN. The post-mortem also covers desktop Argon2id vault encryption, notification leakage risks, and why short PINs remain vulnerable to offline brute-force even with strong KDF parameters.