History Main / InfractionDistraction

[[Ac:FanWorks]]

Infraction Distraction is when a conspicious but minor infraction -- possibly not even illegal but merely disreputable -- is made up or committed for the purposes of distracting authorities from something much more serious. This closely related to the KansasCityShuffle in that the guards in question know they're being tricked, but are wrong about what the trick is.

Compare KansasCityShuffle, which uses con games in place of crimes. Also ConfessToALesserCrime.

Compare KansasCityShuffle, which uses con games in place of crimes.

* In TerryPratchett's ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', Moist uses SuspiciouslySpecificDenial to imply he's in bed with a woman, to cover up that he's the man who broke into the Post Office.

* In the first chapter of ''BloodyMonday'', Fujimaru (a teenager) tells his younger sister he's going to check out his porn downloads, just so she doesn't enter his room to catch him hacking. It's suggested that he also used porn video games as a cover for hacking jobs, though it's never denied that he played them.

[[AC:Literature]]

* VorkosiganSaga:

* RobertAHeinlein loved this trope, not only using it but making it a piece of wisdom for the Mentor to hand on.

* In one GKChesterton mystery, a murder is covered up as a death in a duel.

Overlaps with EmbarrassingCoverUp if the decoy secret is disreputable as well as prohibited (or if the character is so LawfulGood or such a SlaveToPR that being caught breaking even minor rules is an embarrassment in and of itself). Overlap with WeNeedADistraction is possible but rare, since it usually is not to enable further actions. If a character points out some other, unassociated character's wrongdoing, that's GoLookAtTheDistraction. If a suspect is surprisingly quick to confess their BigSecret, there's a good chance it's this. See also HiddenInPlainSight. A CensorDecoy is this used in RealLife to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar get crap past the radar]].

* In the first chapter of ''{{Bloody Monday}}'', Fujimaru (a teenager) tells his younger sister he's going to check out his porn downloads, just so she doesn't enter his room to catch him hacking. It's suggested that he also used porn video games as a cover for hacking jobs, though it's never denied that he played them.

* A couple of ''{{Paranoia}}'' characters have registered mutations they don't actually have, such as chronic runny nose (his real mutation was about to be reported, but citizens with multiple mutations are nearly unheard of) or temporary blindness (so he could take bribes from fellow traitors to look the other way).

* In the first chapter of ''{{BloodyMonday}}'', Fujimaru (a teenager) tells his younger sister he's going to check out his porn downloads, just so she doesn't enter his room to catch him hacking. It's suggested that he also used porn video games as a cover for hacking jobs, though it's never denied that he played them.

* This is the principle behind [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption "deniable encryption"]] systems, designed to address the situation where someone in possession of encrypted files is coerced (by physical force or plea bargaining, say) into handing over the decryption key. These systems allow data to be hidden on several different "layers", each requiring a separate key to access the data - for example, someone could store their porn collection at the first layer, {{squick}}ier porn at the second layer, and military state secrets at the third. The trick is that it's mathematically impossible for the interrogator to know how many layers are in use, since anything they haven't decrypted yet is indistinguishable from random garbage - so at any point the subject can plausibly claim that they've handed over all the keys they have, and the interrogator has no way to be sure whether they're dealing with an actual spy or just a very paranoid pervert.

* This is one of the many tactics employed by Light in ''DeathNote'' to hide his possession of the titular book. When he realizes that his room has been bugged, he lets them catch him reading porn, in order to make it appear that his security-precautions were put in place to prevent his parents or sibling from finding his PornStash.

** In a ''Labyrinth,'' when caught trying to break into a facility, one of Miles' subordinates quickly posed as a fool who confused it with the same company's entertainment venue, and was trying to get in on a bet.
** One of the stories about one of Miles' ancestors has him using the smuggling bicycles tactic, to smuggle horses into a besieged city.

Infraction Distraction is when a conspicious but minor infraction -- possibly not even illegal but merely disreputable -- is made up or committed for the purposes of distracting authorities from something much more serious. This closely related to the KansasCityShuffle in that the guards in question knows they're being tricked, but are wrong about what the trick is.

Infraction Distraction is when a conspicious but minor infraction -- possibly not even illegal but merely disreputable -- is made up or committed for the purposes of distracting authorities from something much more serious.

->''Tuan comes up to the border between Vietnam and China on his bicycle. He has two large bags over his shoulders. The guard stops him and says, "What's in the bags?"\\

* In Mary Steward's ''This Rough Magic'', [[spoiler:Godfrey]] admits to smuggling to distract from his actual attempts at [[spoiler:destablizing nations with counterfeit currency]] and attempted murder.