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> But that has never made any logical sense, because you have to leave a large hole that never gets decrypted, which will make it hard to plausibly deny the hidden volume's existence. Moreover, if the authority is legitimate, lying about the hidden volume is not only a crime, but it may constitute a waiver of any Fifth Amendment rights (or the local equivalent) you might otherwise have had. It's actively making your situation worse, for no upside.

You're not getting it. TrueCrypt will, if you CLICK THROUGH THE WIZARD AND ACCEPT THE DEFAULTS, fill half of the drive with random junk data, not make it part of the primary volume, and not make it a hidden volume. TrueCrypt will, BY DEFAULT, just waste half your space. So, if you CHOOSE THE DEFAULT OPTIONS, half of your space will look exactly like a hidden volume would, even though it isn't.

So, how is anyone ever going to prove there's a hidden volume there? It's entirely plausible that you just clicked Next a bunch of times in the wizard and didn't make a hidden volume. Most people would do that.

TrueCrypt's hidden volume behavior is an extremely clever technique for ensuring no one can be legally compelled to provide encryption keys they don't want to provide, because it makes it impossible for the government to know whether those keys even exist.