4 ms·

It's a sad state of affairs when Veracrypt is one of the top contenders for tools to use. We need a fresh batch of properly maintained privacy tools.

teddyh 5y ago
Feel free to recommend something else from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_...
- codetrotter 5y ago
  https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/242427/is-native-openzfs-on-freebsd-block-level-encryption-secure https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/242427/is-nativ... > [...] it appears that OpenZFS encryption is far stronger than LUKS or VeraCrypt encryption. > LUKS and VeraCrypt use the XTS mode of encryption, which is not authenticated, and is vulnerable to some limited recovery of information when an attacker can have access to the encrypted data at different times. On the other hand OpenZFS encryption is authenticated and at the state of the art. Also, you should take care to disable compression when encrypting with OpenZFS.
  - buildbot 5y ago
    > Also, you should take care to disable compression when encrypting with OpenZFS. This is new to me, why?
    - merlincorey 5y ago
      Encrypted data attempts to look like random binary data, generally. Random binary data doesn't compress very well, sometimes even negatively.
      - unnouinceput 5y ago
        OP said the other way around. We all know encrypted data does not compress well, but why would you need to disable compression when encrypting? Compressed data should actually be a smaller dataset hence encrypting it should be even faster.
        teddyh 5y ago
        In general, if the size is then visible after encryption, you can tell that the data, whatever is was, compressed well. This is information leakage, and can, IIUC, be exploited to surprising degrees.
        unnouinceput 5y ago
        This doesn't make any sense. Here you have a disk. It's compressed or not, doesn't matter, the size stays the same. Then you use BitLocker on it. Again, compressed or not, after BitLocker encrypts it, the size is still the same. Your point?
        teddyh 5y ago
        Like I said, “if the size is visible after encryption”. I don’t know if this is a huge issue with block device encryption in general, but then again, OpenZFS isn’t really only a block-device-level driver, is it? I would not be surprised to hear that OpenZFS somehow encrypts on some higher level than the whole block device.
        rcxdude 5y ago
        Compress then encrypt opens up one important vulnerability: if an attacker can control a part of what you're encrypting (which they perhaps can on an average laptop drive, think a cookie in a webbrowser), and they can observe the size of the message after it has been compressed and encrypted, then with repeated attempts they can guess part of your secret and wait until the compression algorithm succeeds in matching part of their data with your secret. TBH, with whole-disk encryption I would not worry too much about this attack (the threat model is almost always theft where repeated observations of the cryptext after being modified by someone with the key are not practical), but it was core to a lot of vulnerabilities that basically forced TLS-level compression to be almost universally disabled.
  - conradev 5y ago
    Pretty much everything uses AES-XTS: BitLocker and FileVault do as well
urda 5y ago
Whats' wrong with Veracrypt?
bitwize 5y ago
Wasn't it originally written by that criminal mastermind hacker genius who probably is Satoshi?
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  That was truecrypt
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    Paul Le Roux probably isnt satoshi, but he is a very interesting person. The article series "The mastermind" goes into some depth about what he was up to: https://magazine.atavist.com/category/Mastermind/ https://magazine.atavist.com/category/Mastermind/ Recommended reading!
  - unnouinceput 5y ago
    And VeraCrypt is a fork of TrueCrypt
aborsy 5y ago
This guy says veracrypt is tough, even tougher than LUKS: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/06/breaking-veracrypt-obtaining-and-extracting-on-the-fly-encryption-keys/ https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/06/breaking-veracrypt-obtain... Disk encryption is generally in XTS mode, and not authenticated. That’s not limited to veracrypt.
Spooky23 5y ago
Veracrypt is not a contender for a commercial solution. There are several different products on the market, and a variety of ways that native solutions like Bitlocker can be configured.

teddyh 5y ago

Feel free to recommend something else from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_...

codetrotter 5y ago
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/242427/is-native-openzfs-on-freebsd-block-level-encryption-secure https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/242427/is-nativ... > [...] it appears that OpenZFS encryption is far stronger than LUKS or VeraCrypt encryption. > LUKS and VeraCrypt use the XTS mode of encryption, which is not authenticated, and is vulnerable to some limited recovery of information when an attacker can have access to the encrypted data at different times. On the other hand OpenZFS encryption is authenticated and at the state of the art. Also, you should take care to disable compression when encrypting with OpenZFS.
- buildbot 5y ago
  > Also, you should take care to disable compression when encrypting with OpenZFS. This is new to me, why?
  - merlincorey 5y ago
    Encrypted data attempts to look like random binary data, generally. Random binary data doesn't compress very well, sometimes even negatively.
    - unnouinceput 5y ago
      OP said the other way around. We all know encrypted data does not compress well, but why would you need to disable compression when encrypting? Compressed data should actually be a smaller dataset hence encrypting it should be even faster.
      - teddyh 5y ago
        In general, if the size is then visible after encryption, you can tell that the data, whatever is was, compressed well. This is information leakage, and can, IIUC, be exploited to surprising degrees.
        unnouinceput 5y ago
        This doesn't make any sense. Here you have a disk. It's compressed or not, doesn't matter, the size stays the same. Then you use BitLocker on it. Again, compressed or not, after BitLocker encrypts it, the size is still the same. Your point?
        teddyh 5y ago
        Like I said, “if the size is visible after encryption”. I don’t know if this is a huge issue with block device encryption in general, but then again, OpenZFS isn’t really only a block-device-level driver, is it? I would not be surprised to hear that OpenZFS somehow encrypts on some higher level than the whole block device.
        rcxdude 5y ago
        Compress then encrypt opens up one important vulnerability: if an attacker can control a part of what you're encrypting (which they perhaps can on an average laptop drive, think a cookie in a webbrowser), and they can observe the size of the message after it has been compressed and encrypted, then with repeated attempts they can guess part of your secret and wait until the compression algorithm succeeds in matching part of their data with your secret. TBH, with whole-disk encryption I would not worry too much about this attack (the threat model is almost always theft where repeated observations of the cryptext after being modified by someone with the key are not practical), but it was core to a lot of vulnerabilities that basically forced TLS-level compression to be almost universally disabled.
- conradev 5y ago
  Pretty much everything uses AES-XTS: BitLocker and FileVault do as well

urda 5y ago

Whats' wrong with Veracrypt?

bitwize 5y ago

Wasn't it originally written by that criminal mastermind hacker genius who probably is Satoshi?

cyberpunk 5y ago
That was truecrypt
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  Paul Le Roux probably isnt satoshi, but he is a very interesting person. The article series "The mastermind" goes into some depth about what he was up to: https://magazine.atavist.com/category/Mastermind/ https://magazine.atavist.com/category/Mastermind/ Recommended reading!
- unnouinceput 5y ago
  And VeraCrypt is a fork of TrueCrypt

aborsy 5y ago

This guy says veracrypt is tough, even tougher than LUKS: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/06/breaking-veracrypt-obtaining-and-extracting-on-the-fly-encryption-keys/ https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/06/breaking-veracrypt-obtain... Disk encryption is generally in XTS mode, and not authenticated. That’s not limited to veracrypt.

Spooky23 5y ago

Veracrypt is not a contender for a commercial solution. There are several different products on the market, and a variety of ways that native solutions like Bitlocker can be configured.