4 ms·

See also: http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/west-allis-man-indicted-on-federal-child-porn-charges-b9984158z1-221218841.html http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/

See also: http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/west-allis-man-indicted-on-federal-child-porn-charges-b9984158z1-221218841.html http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/west-allis-man-indicted-o... It would appear that governments are able to somewhat efficiently bruteforce TrueCrypt volumes and access a little bit of data at a time. I couldn't get anyone interested in this article, but I would also like to know what's going on here. If a TrueCrypt volume can be broken for a small-time case of a child porn possession, that would seem to have dramatic ramifications for the security of pretty much everything in the world. Unless RSA is still solid and it's just TrueCrypt. Can any crypto experts comment?

rwmj 13y ago
They said on the news that he had the password written down on a piece of paper (which was also seized / found during the search). I don't think there's any mystery here.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  That sounds like a line they'd use to try and cover up the abilities of GCHQ (or whoever) to access such filesystems. If they had the password then what prevented them from accessing the whole volume?
- superuser2 13y ago
  If they found the password, they would have all the drive. Not just part of it. Right?
lawnchair_larry 13y ago
That article provides no suggestion whatsoever that the government is able to efficiently bruteforce truecrypt. I think everyone can agree that if any part of the government had better-than-brute force capabilities for truecrypt, the FBI would absolutely not be allowed to disclose or make use of that capability in a child porn case. More likely explanations: Forensics recovered the password from an unencrypted volume, or he had a really dumb password, and he probably reused it somewhere.
venomsnake 13y ago
RSA is asymmetrical algorithm. They rely on mathematical problems being hard. TrueCrypt use symmetrical - AES Twofish and Serpent and you can even cascade them. RSA and AES have nothing in common. So a mathematical breakthrough in RSA will not help at all with making AES insecure.

rwmj 13y ago

They said on the news that he had the password written down on a piece of paper (which was also seized / found during the search). I don't think there's any mystery here.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
That sounds like a line they'd use to try and cover up the abilities of GCHQ (or whoever) to access such filesystems. If they had the password then what prevented them from accessing the whole volume?
superuser2 13y ago
If they found the password, they would have all the drive. Not just part of it. Right?

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

That article provides no suggestion whatsoever that the government is able to efficiently bruteforce truecrypt. I think everyone can agree that if any part of the government had better-than-brute force capabilities for truecrypt, the FBI would absolutely not be allowed to disclose or make use of that capability in a child porn case. More likely explanations: Forensics recovered the password from an unencrypted volume, or he had a really dumb password, and he probably reused it somewhere.

venomsnake 13y ago

RSA is asymmetrical algorithm. They rely on mathematical problems being hard. TrueCrypt use symmetrical - AES Twofish and Serpent and you can even cascade them. RSA and AES have nothing in common. So a mathematical breakthrough in RSA will not help at all with making AES insecure.