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TrueCrypt. The most shady piece of security software I have seen. It's 2013 and there is still no public repository and no changelogs are published. Don't you e

by thex86 13y ago

TrueCrypt. The most shady piece of security software I have seen. It's 2013 and there is still no public repository and no changelogs are published. Don't you expect the software you will trust all your secrets with to be at least open about these things? People keep on saying Schneier says it's good, did he actually check each and every line of the source code? Not to mention that I read somewhere that they ban you on their forums if you ask them these questions. Let's see the ChangeLog: "Improvements and bug fixes: Minor improvements and bug fixes (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux" Minor improvements and bug fixes :) This is how you write your ChangeLog friends!

dmix 13y ago
LUKS/dmcrypt is an excellent fully open source alternative to Truecrypt. http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/
- npsimons 13y ago
  Exactly; I don't see why people have such a hard-on for TrueCrypt when you get LUKS out of the box on a Debian install. It's a no-brainer.
  - CJefferson 13y ago
    I can send them to Windows and Mac users. Even non-technical types seem to be able to open transcript volumes.
    - aclevernickname 13y ago
      While blowing my cover a little, here's an anecdote about LUKSfs-encrypted drives: I was arrested sometime in early 2011 (let out after 7 hours without charges, which was a fun story in itself). In my pocket, they found two USB sticks. one was a Linux Mint LiveUSB. The other USB stick was encrypted via LUKS. The police could have booted of the LiveUSB, and then inserted the second USB to decrypt it. if they had decided to force me to divulge my password, they would have found all sorts of incriminating things to keep me for longer. However, this did not happen; when inserted in the police's Windows PC's, they merely popped up a "This drive is not formatted. would you like to format it now?" message. Naturally, they clicked "no" and gave me back the stick. I owe a part of my freedom to Microsoft's and my local Police's devotion to the Windows OS. TL;DR - LUKS not working in Windows OS is a feature, not a bug.
      - npsimons 13y ago
        To that I add that I specified that Debian offered LUKS at install; if you're going with whole disk encryption and doing enough in Linux to care about it, you won't care about being able to read that partition in other OSes, especially ones you don't have the source code to.
- andrewcooke 13y ago
  it doesn't support hidden volumes (deniable).
- schrodingersCat 13y ago
  Anyone had luck compiling this on OSX?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
pyre 13y ago
If the NSA has the ability to break into TrueCrypt drives, then they aren't going to tip their hat on the matter, even in the case of child pornographers. They would probably only be willing to let that information out for very high value targets, because in the meantime, people are still using it and they can still get access to it. If people know that the NSA (or whomever) can get into TrueCrypt volumes, then they stop using it.
- localhorse 13y ago
  Do they need to tip their hats, even when dealing with "high value" targets? Once you've found what you're looking for, you could easily find other damning information that could have plausibly come from somewhere else, no?
  - pyre 13y ago
    While possibly true, not every situation will lend itself to easily finding other damning information with a plausible outside source. Just look at WW2. There were times that the Allies knew things would happen, but couldn't act on them because it would tip their hat to the Germans that there was a leak somewhere (possibly leading them to the knowledge that the Allies had cracked Enigma), and the pay-off wasn't worth the risk.
    - pyre 13y ago
      Oops: s/tip their hat/tip their hand/
noinsight 13y ago
There's another implementation for TrueCrypt these days, tc-play, https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play that looks promising.
- autodidakto 13y ago
  DragonflyBSD is impressive and is trying to improve on modern OSes (See HAMMER filesystem). I hope tc-play becomes crossplatform.
  - dlitz 13y ago
    I've been using tcplay on Debian for about a year now.

by thex86 13y ago

dmix 13y ago

LUKS/dmcrypt is an excellent fully open source alternative to Truecrypt. http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/

npsimons 13y ago
Exactly; I don't see why people have such a hard-on for TrueCrypt when you get LUKS out of the box on a Debian install. It's a no-brainer.
- CJefferson 13y ago
  I can send them to Windows and Mac users. Even non-technical types seem to be able to open transcript volumes.
  - aclevernickname 13y ago
    While blowing my cover a little, here's an anecdote about LUKSfs-encrypted drives: I was arrested sometime in early 2011 (let out after 7 hours without charges, which was a fun story in itself). In my pocket, they found two USB sticks. one was a Linux Mint LiveUSB. The other USB stick was encrypted via LUKS. The police could have booted of the LiveUSB, and then inserted the second USB to decrypt it. if they had decided to force me to divulge my password, they would have found all sorts of incriminating things to keep me for longer. However, this did not happen; when inserted in the police's Windows PC's, they merely popped up a "This drive is not formatted. would you like to format it now?" message. Naturally, they clicked "no" and gave me back the stick. I owe a part of my freedom to Microsoft's and my local Police's devotion to the Windows OS. TL;DR - LUKS not working in Windows OS is a feature, not a bug.
    - npsimons 13y ago
      To that I add that I specified that Debian offered LUKS at install; if you're going with whole disk encryption and doing enough in Linux to care about it, you won't care about being able to read that partition in other OSes, especially ones you don't have the source code to.
andrewcooke 13y ago
it doesn't support hidden volumes (deniable).
schrodingersCat 13y ago
Anyone had luck compiling this on OSX?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

pyre 13y ago

If the NSA has the ability to break into TrueCrypt drives, then they aren't going to tip their hat on the matter, even in the case of child pornographers. They would probably only be willing to let that information out for very high value targets, because in the meantime, people are still using it and they can still get access to it. If people know that the NSA (or whomever) can get into TrueCrypt volumes, then they stop using it.

localhorse 13y ago
Do they need to tip their hats, even when dealing with "high value" targets? Once you've found what you're looking for, you could easily find other damning information that could have plausibly come from somewhere else, no?
- pyre 13y ago
  While possibly true, not every situation will lend itself to easily finding other damning information with a plausible outside source. Just look at WW2. There were times that the Allies knew things would happen, but couldn't act on them because it would tip their hat to the Germans that there was a leak somewhere (possibly leading them to the knowledge that the Allies had cracked Enigma), and the pay-off wasn't worth the risk.
  - pyre 13y ago
    Oops: s/tip their hat/tip their hand/

noinsight 13y ago

There's another implementation for TrueCrypt these days, tc-play, https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play that looks promising.

autodidakto 13y ago
DragonflyBSD is impressive and is trying to improve on modern OSes (See HAMMER filesystem). I hope tc-play becomes crossplatform.
- dlitz 13y ago
  I've been using tcplay on Debian for about a year now.