Some snippets from the web pages
Rubberhose is a computer program which both transparently encrypts data on a storage device, such as a hard drive, and allows you to hide that encrypted data.Posted by Josh at September 10, 2003 11:34 PM | TrackBackRubberhose is a type of deniable cryptography package. Deniable cryptography gives a person not wanting to disclose the plaintext data corresponding to their encrypted material the ability to show that there is more than one interpretation of the encrypted data. What deniable crypto means in the Rubberhose context is this: if someone grabs your Rubberhose-encrypted hard drive, he or she will know there is encrypted material on it, but not how much -- thus allowing you to hide the existence of some of your data.
Rubberhose was originally conceived by crypto-programmer Julian Assange as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field, particularly lists of activists and details of incidents of abuse. Repressive regimes in places like East Timor, Russia, Kosovo, Guatamalia, Iraq, Sudan and The Congo conduct human rights abuses regularly. Our team has met with human rights groups an heard first hand accounts of such abuses. Human rights workers carry vital data on laptops through the most dangerous situations, sometimes being stopped by military patrols who would have no hesitation in torturing a suspect until he or she revealed a passphrase to unlock the data. We want to help these sorts of campaigners, particularly the brave people in the field who risk so much to smuggle data about the abuses out to the rest of the world.