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Before you see this as a “duplicate,” this question is similar, but the circumstances of mine are very different. My scenario is purely hypothetical, but could definitely apply to people in real life.

I want to distribute a non-official pre-shared key to a “friend,” but all communications are monitored by the government, and sharing this key would get flagged. The government decrypts all traffic, and has a hold on all third parties (such as encrypted email,) so these aren’t options.

I don’t have physical access to the person I want to share the key with.

We can communicate through email and SMS, as well as mobile calls, but again, all services are controlled by the government.

What would be the best way to give my “friend" the PSK remotely, without the overarching government knowing?

My only idea currently is disguising and steganography, but those have their downsides.

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  • I doubt the "real life" claim...
    – schroeder ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 8:14
  • Do you not want the government to know a key was shared or not know that what was shared was a key, or not get the key at all? If you use steganography, then you will have had to set up the expectation of that kind of communication beforehand. How do you set up that expectation without the government knowing? I'm afraid that this whole scenario is a little too theoretical to be able to answer.
    – schroeder ♦
    Commented Jul 22 at 8:18
  • @schroeder as for the real life claim, take one look at NK… well if I send a text saying: here’s the key: 000, then I don’t think that is “ok” by the question standards, but I think as long as the government doesn’t know what the key is, or that it is a key, then that’s the achievement I am looking for.
    – Hman66
    Commented Jul 22 at 8:28
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    If you rig the system so that it's impossible - as here - then it is impossible. I fail to see how this is useful.
    – vidarlo
    Commented Jul 22 at 8:47
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    @security_paranoid: You state that all communication is monitored and sharing a key would get flagged. But, you obviously some kind of communication if you want to share information. This means that you either need to use a channel which is not monitored - which contradicts your assumption that all communication is monitored. Or you need to find a way to transport the key through a monitored communication - which contradicts your assumption that monitoring is sufficiently perfect so that any attempt to share a key would get flagged. Thus based on your broad assumption it is impossible.
    – Steffen Ullrich
    Commented Jul 22 at 19:28

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