What is a decoy vault?
A decoy vault answers a question most "private" apps ignore: what happens when you're not hiding your photos from a thief across the street, but from someone standing right next to you asking you to open the app?
The threat most apps ignore
Encryption protects you from someone who steals your phone. It does nothing when someone with power over you - a jealous partner, an authority figure, anyone who can pressure you - simply says "unlock it and show me." At that point a normal vault has one outcome: you open it, and everything is visible.
This is called a duress scenario, and the defense is a decoy.
How a decoy vault works
You set up two patterns:
- Your real pattern opens your real vault.
- A decoy pattern opens a separate, harmless vault - a few unremarkable photos, nothing sensitive.
When you're forced to open the app, you enter the decoy pattern. The person sees a believable, boring vault and walks away satisfied. Your real vault never appears - there's no list, no "second vault" button, nothing to suggest it exists.
Why this beats a disguise
A calculator-disguise app tries to hide that a vault exists at all - which fails the moment someone recognizes the trick. A decoy takes the opposite, sturdier approach: it's fine if someone knows you use a vault, because the vault they're shown is the harmless one. You're not betting on secrecy of the app; you're controlling what the app reveals.
How Umbra does it
In Umbra, each pattern addresses its own encrypted vault. Setting a decoy is just setting another pattern and putting a few throwaway items behind it. Combined with the failed-attempt log (which can capture a photo of whoever is trying patterns), you get both a safe answer to "open it" and a record of who went looking.
Have a safe answer to "open it"
Umbra's decoy vault lets you hand over your phone without handing over your private files. Free on Google Play.