9 ms·

New effort to fully audit TrueCrypt raises $16,000+ in a few short weeks

168 points by laurent123456 13y ago

dmix 13y ago
I've abandoned truecrypt for Tomb in the meantime http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/
- free652 13y ago
  Interesting I'll take a look. I need a backup system for my gf (basically a wife) to decrypt my drive in case of my passing. I had a truecrypt volume, now I switched back to OSX encryption. It's basically a drive (in a safe deposit box) with all of my stuff there, also with a copy of my lastpass passwords unencrypted. My gf knows our phrase, 50 characters no less. Took me few months to teach her it.
  - x0054 13y ago
    Few months? How about "anAardvarkAndAHippoAreNeverFriends@" easy to remember and almost impossible to brake. Worst case, lets say that attacker actually knows that the password is 6 words with a special character at the end. Lets further assume that the attacker knows that the words are not overly complicated, say from a subset of 5,000, and the special character is one of the 10 that's easy to type on the keyboard. Even than, at the speed of 10 million passwords per second it would take 500 million years (just about) to crack that one, and no need for months of memorization.
    - gnur 13y ago
      Not true, see this article for more information. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-youtube-are-fueling-the-next-frontier-of-password-cracking/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-yo... Passphrases are not more secure then regular passwords by default, the problem is that a lot of people use phrases that follow simple grammar. Capital first letters of each word, a sentence that is actually valid and no spelling mistakes make it a lot easier to crack then 50 random characters (or 20 random characters). Passphrases that work are random sequences of words that have spelling mistakes, random capitalization, aren't found in any book/song/poem and preferably mix several languages. The famous "correct horse battery staple" is better then your example, I have memorized 20 random words from 3 languages and use those words in some combination in all my passwords.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    Here's a 58 character phrase: You always find something in the very last place you look. I wonder how many months it'd take to learn that. :-/
    - balabaster 13y ago
      Except now that'll be the first place I'll look :D
    - dmix 13y ago
      I would have at least 1-2 slang/leet-speak words in there to counter dictionary attacks.
      - jordanthoms 13y ago
        Actually, as the Ars technica articles have shown, it takes much more than that to protect from a dictionary attack with the speed that passwords can be tried now. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-youtube-are-fueling-the-next-frontier-of-password-cracking/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-yo...
        diminoten 13y ago
        A 58 character passphrase defeats all demonstrated examples in that article. But the point is being missed - two months? "I taught my wife in two months the passphrase"? Completely moronic.
        corin_ 13y ago
        No the point isn't being missed. How easy that phrase would be to crack is debatable and I don't know the correct answer, but let's assume that it is easy, you might need to make it more complicated. If this is the case, then the fact that a simple easy-to-crack phrase is easy to learn is irrelevant, like saying "it's quick to learn every word of French you'll ever need to speak - bonjour, oui, non". On the flip side, if you're right that the phrase is secure enough, then your argument is valid that it should be fairly quick to memorise. But the question of whether that phrase is good enough is entirely relevant and not missing the point. (You could still make the point that two months is two long for any phrase, I'm sure, but without knowing how much more complicated it is than your example, and without knowing how different people manage learning things, that's hard to say.)
- cryptocascadia 13y ago
  zuluCrypt [1] replaced TrueCrypt for me. > "zuluCrypt is a front end to cryptsetup and tcplay. It makes it easy to manage LUKS,PLAIN and TRUECRYPT encrypted volumes through a GUI and a simpler to use CLI interface." If you can handle experimental CLI-driven software, pbp [2] is interesting. > "PBP is a simple python wrapper and a command line interface around libsodium, to provide basic functionality resembling PGP. It uses scrypt for a KDF and a much simpler packet format, which should be much harder to fingerprint, pbp also provides an experimental forward secrecy mode and a multi-party DH mode." [1] https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ [2] https://github.com/stef/pbp https://github.com/stef/pbp https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zulucrypt/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zulucrypt/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python2-pbp https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python2-pbp
- cantrevealname 13y ago
  Let's not forget that an enormous number of people in the world still use Windows. We need a secure, reliable, and free solution for them. The only app that currently fills these requirements for Windows is TrueCrypt. That's why I think it's a great idea to do a security audit of TrueCrypt since that's the best available solution for a big segment of the world's population.
  - mhogomchungu 13y ago
    There is the truecrypt binary and truecrypt formatted encrypted volume.The format of the truecrypt volume is known and there exists open source solutions that can create and open truecrypt volumes. All it will take to have alternatives in windows is for windows based block device encryption applications to pick up the format.It is surprising it hasnt happened yet and this drive is completely ignoring this line of thinking.
  - shawnz 13y ago
    > We need a secure, reliable, and free solution for them. The only app that currently fills these requirements for Windows is TrueCrypt. What's wrong with BitLocker? EDIT: Keep in mind we are just talking about Windows solutions here. And if Windows is backdoored, it is not going to make much difference if BitLocker is also backdoored by the same agency.
    - chiph 13y ago
      Rampant speculation that it has been back-doored by the NSA. Also, not cross-platform.
  - j_s 13y ago
    DiskCryptor has the opposite problem: it's Windows-only. http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en
- mavroprovato 13y ago
  Personally, I have trouble trusting people who write thngs like "Windowz" and "Winslows" on their product home page.
thex86 13y ago
Cool! Maybe, finally, as a result of public scrutiny, TrueCrypt will have a public repository. You know, it's 2013. I cannot think of any reason why the software you will possibly trust with your life does not have code in a public repository. Till then time, we will and we should doubt it.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  If only I could raise 16k to get 7-zip some actual source control, too...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- cantrevealname 13y ago
  > the software ... does not have code in a public repository Yes, TrueCrypt should use a revision control system like Git or SVN. However, your comment can be misinterpreted as saying that TrueCrypt doesn't release source code at all. It's worth mentioning that the full source code is available ( here: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2 http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2 ).
dmishe 13y ago
So um how do we know that none of the people conducting this audit are secretly working for NSA? Somewhat james bond-y idea but you get the point.
- dublinben 13y ago
  In theory, it shouldn't matter. A public audit is public, so the work can be scrutinized by anyone.
- tptacek 13y ago
  This is the new Slashdot "First Post", isn't it?
  - dmishe 13y ago
    What?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Kids these days.
      - officialjunk 13y ago
        Hmm?
      - YuriNiyazov 13y ago
        My god, we are old, Thomas. This is what most graybeards must feel like.
  - simias 13y ago
    It's more like the new "imagine a beowulf cluster of these" meme, a comment generic enough that can fit most stories while contributing nothing to the discussion. They could have settled for "I, for one, welcome our new NSA overlords".
- krapp 13y ago
laurent123456 13y ago
> There’s just one problem: no one knows who created the software. What do they mean by this? Do we literally don't know who created Truecrypt?
- yeukhon 13y ago
  One thing for sure it is based on another software. See History (http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/version-history2 http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/version-history2) > 1.0 > February 2, 2004 > Note: TrueCrypt 1.0 is based on E4M (Encryption for the > Masses). Therefore, the following list contains > differences between E4M 2.02a and TrueCrypt 1.0 (minor > differences have been omitted).
- cantrevealname 13y ago
  > Do we literally don't know who created Truecrypt? Yes, that's right. (The very earliest version was based on work 13 years ago by Paul Le Roux, but it's undergone enormous work since then by some person or group.) TrueCrypt is a popular, carefully designed, well written, well maintained, highly stable and non-trivial application, but its authors are completely unknown. The open source world does have some quiet humble people, but it seems surprising that the authors want to remain totally anonymous for developing a legitimate and well-respected product.
  - hrktb 13y ago
    Interesting. About anonymity, there is always the case where you don't want people knocking at your door to ask for backdoors, hidden vulnerabilities or any other requests about the software that you don't want to deal with.
  - cLeEOGPw 13y ago
    Same with bitcoin. Is it that good knowledge of cryptography somehow makes the author to hide it's identity?
- 16s 13y ago
  People continually discover this and are shocked to learn that the authors are anonymous. This has been a known fact since at least 2005. The authors of TC are anonymous and have been for a very, very long time.
mynameishere 13y ago
Here's the thing...if any government organization actually goes through a truecrypt backdoor or flaw, the odds are very good that the news will get out. Yeah, if they seize a computer, crack it and never provide the unencrypted information to a court or other public forum (and somehow shut-up the perpetrator), they could keep it secret. But what's the point?
- cantrevealname 13y ago
  Your claim is that use of decrypted information would reveal the backdoor. I'll offer the Enigma cipher as a counterexample: The British were regularly reading and acting upon encrypted German messages in 1940. It may have changed the course of World War II! The Germans did not learn that the British had broken the code despite German ships being sunk based on the Enigma crack. In fact, nobody in the public knew until 1974. ( ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) A government organization could make good use of a TrueCrypt backdoor without it ever being revealed in court or a public forum. They can act on the information using a pretext for example.
  - mynameishere 13y ago
    I'm trying to imagine a parallel circumstance and I cannot. Most governments would not use truecrypt, but rather something they have control of themselves. The people using truecrypt illicitly are ordinary criminals: Gangsters, child pornographers, terrorists (maybe), money-launderers, drug dealers, etc. The information revealed by a crack is not something that can be used in the manner of that by espionage. (ie, it won't tell us that Rommel will be approaching Cairo at such-and-such a date.) Information via espionage can be filtered down as if it were from other intelligence sources, or even guessing. And so the exploit can be concealed as with Ultra. But to use truecrypt against the people who are actually using it for crime you would almost certainly have to reveal the exploit publicly in a court.
    - objclxt 13y ago
      > you would almost certainly have to reveal the exploit publicly in a court. That's definitely not true. Often police and prosecutors will go to great lengths to hide a wiretap from the courts, especially if direct evidence didn't come from it. There have also been many cases where wiretaps haven't been disclosed in court because there may be on-going related operations that require the same surveillance. You don't want to tip people off. I don't see why any potential exploit wouldn't be the same. Here's an example: say you're investigating some organised crime. You learn from a wiretap that the next day one of your informants is going to be killed. You clearly want to prevent the latter without disclosing you've got an active wiretap.
devx 13y ago
I hope they've taken a snapshot of the software before announcing the crowdfunding campaign. If there has been any update since then, and it had any backdoor, it may have already been removed.
kevinpet 13y ago
Apparently TrueCrypt still has the crazy license which no one can quite figure out if it's an amateur attempt to write an open source license, or an extremely subtle trap to lure people into thinking it's an open source license so that they can later sue.
- nodata 13y ago
  It's not open source: http://opensource.org/licenses http://opensource.org/licenses
  - richardfontana 13y ago
    The absence of the TrueCrypt license on the OSI-certified list itself does not signify much, since the license was AFAIK never submitted for OSI approval, but Linux distros among others have raised concerns about several versions of the license in the past, and the current one continues to be problematic IMO. Some recent discussion has been going on on the OSI license-discuss mailing list for those interested: see http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-October/001293.html http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/201... and followup messages. (Disclaimer: am an OSI director and also am Red Hat lawyer who was involved in reviewing and rejecting the TrueCrypt license for Fedora.)
    - nodata 13y ago
      Thanks for the info, there's a lot of old information around. The Wikipedia page seems to indicate you (as Red Hat) have no further objections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt#Licensing_and_Open_Source_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt#Licensing_and_Open_S... - I guess this is wrong. and the OSI minutes page seems to indicate the TrueCrypt license was going to be rejected (maybe I'm misreading this): http://opensource.org/minutes20061213 http://opensource.org/minutes20061213 - but this is from 2006.
      - richardfontana 13y ago
        The assertion that TrueCrypt "has now managed to fix all the problems cited by Red Hat Legal (relayed by Tom Callaway)" is false (I'm not Tom Callaway but I am confident he would agree with me on this). The points I mention in the license-discuss posting yesterday http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-October/001313.html http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/201... were applicable (as far as I can remember) to earlier versions we looked at and as to which we raised concerns to TrueCrypt. As I noted in that posting, TrueCrypt did change some things in response to the barrage of criticism, but not enough.
rdl 13y ago
The best thing someone could do for TrueCrypt security is to very publicly release a version with a backdoor, easily exploited, and difficult to detect, for anyone else to distribute. By making that a real threat, users will end up checking their source/compilation/results, protecting them against the same threat from real attackers.
- cantrevealname 13y ago
  That might be a cute object lesson in good security practice for the security cognoscenti, but the overwhelming majority of potential users in the world will just throw up their hands in despair and say that we can trust anything and privacy is impossible. If we want ordinary people to benefit from TrueCrypt, a better idea would be to find secure ways of distributing signed and verified copies of the binary. I'm saying binary because most users in the world will be ordinary Windows and Mac users, not software developers. Most people in the world cannot compile from source. Also, as a first step, we need to do this security audit of TrueCrypt.
  - rdl 13y ago
    (Not saying auditing truecrypt is bad; I'll probably donate some $ once I get back to the US) This problem already exists, and is actually something Mac App Store, iOS/iTunes store, and Google Play do a pretty good job of solving; I assume there are some similar solutions for Windows (I don't really know the windows consumer software distribution space). The extensions improvements in Chrome/Firefox (and I guess other browsers, but I don't follow them) also are a great step forward toward this. Ubuntu/Debian do a pretty good job of locking down main repositories, too. It's really just a matter of training users that downloading random code from random URLs is risky. Once locked-down distribution hits critical mass, you can probably get away with making it even more difficult and obvious-to-the-user-he-is-doing-something-risky in "sideloading" applications. You can also have corp/org security policies which prohibit this kind of thing. Obviously there are sacrifices for this -- it becomes possible for a platform owner to restrict availability of apps based on non-security considerations, like being anti-porn (Apple), complying with the union of laws of all countries, etc. Or just outright commercial anti-competitiveness (again, mostly Apple...)

168 points by laurent123456 13y ago

dmix 13y ago

I've abandoned truecrypt for Tomb in the meantime http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/

free652 13y ago
Interesting I'll take a look. I need a backup system for my gf (basically a wife) to decrypt my drive in case of my passing. I had a truecrypt volume, now I switched back to OSX encryption. It's basically a drive (in a safe deposit box) with all of my stuff there, also with a copy of my lastpass passwords unencrypted. My gf knows our phrase, 50 characters no less. Took me few months to teach her it.
- x0054 13y ago
  Few months? How about "anAardvarkAndAHippoAreNeverFriends@" easy to remember and almost impossible to brake. Worst case, lets say that attacker actually knows that the password is 6 words with a special character at the end. Lets further assume that the attacker knows that the words are not overly complicated, say from a subset of 5,000, and the special character is one of the 10 that's easy to type on the keyboard. Even than, at the speed of 10 million passwords per second it would take 500 million years (just about) to crack that one, and no need for months of memorization.
  - gnur 13y ago
    Not true, see this article for more information. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-youtube-are-fueling-the-next-frontier-of-password-cracking/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-yo... Passphrases are not more secure then regular passwords by default, the problem is that a lot of people use phrases that follow simple grammar. Capital first letters of each word, a sentence that is actually valid and no spelling mistakes make it a lot easier to crack then 50 random characters (or 20 random characters). Passphrases that work are random sequences of words that have spelling mistakes, random capitalization, aren't found in any book/song/poem and preferably mix several languages. The famous "correct horse battery staple" is better then your example, I have memorized 20 random words from 3 languages and use those words in some combination in all my passwords.
- diminoten 13y ago
  Here's a 58 character phrase: You always find something in the very last place you look. I wonder how many months it'd take to learn that. :-/
  - balabaster 13y ago
    Except now that'll be the first place I'll look :D
  - dmix 13y ago
    I would have at least 1-2 slang/leet-speak words in there to counter dictionary attacks.
    - jordanthoms 13y ago
      Actually, as the Ars technica articles have shown, it takes much more than that to protect from a dictionary attack with the speed that passwords can be tried now. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-youtube-are-fueling-the-next-frontier-of-password-cracking/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-yo...
      - diminoten 13y ago
        A 58 character passphrase defeats all demonstrated examples in that article. But the point is being missed - two months? "I taught my wife in two months the passphrase"? Completely moronic.
        corin_ 13y ago
        No the point isn't being missed. How easy that phrase would be to crack is debatable and I don't know the correct answer, but let's assume that it is easy, you might need to make it more complicated. If this is the case, then the fact that a simple easy-to-crack phrase is easy to learn is irrelevant, like saying "it's quick to learn every word of French you'll ever need to speak - bonjour, oui, non". On the flip side, if you're right that the phrase is secure enough, then your argument is valid that it should be fairly quick to memorise. But the question of whether that phrase is good enough is entirely relevant and not missing the point. (You could still make the point that two months is two long for any phrase, I'm sure, but without knowing how much more complicated it is than your example, and without knowing how different people manage learning things, that's hard to say.)
cryptocascadia 13y ago
zuluCrypt [1] replaced TrueCrypt for me. > "zuluCrypt is a front end to cryptsetup and tcplay. It makes it easy to manage LUKS,PLAIN and TRUECRYPT encrypted volumes through a GUI and a simpler to use CLI interface." If you can handle experimental CLI-driven software, pbp [2] is interesting. > "PBP is a simple python wrapper and a command line interface around libsodium, to provide basic functionality resembling PGP. It uses scrypt for a KDF and a much simpler packet format, which should be much harder to fingerprint, pbp also provides an experimental forward secrecy mode and a multi-party DH mode." [1] https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ [2] https://github.com/stef/pbp https://github.com/stef/pbp https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zulucrypt/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zulucrypt/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python2-pbp https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python2-pbp
cantrevealname 13y ago
Let's not forget that an enormous number of people in the world still use Windows. We need a secure, reliable, and free solution for them. The only app that currently fills these requirements for Windows is TrueCrypt. That's why I think it's a great idea to do a security audit of TrueCrypt since that's the best available solution for a big segment of the world's population.
- mhogomchungu 13y ago
  There is the truecrypt binary and truecrypt formatted encrypted volume.The format of the truecrypt volume is known and there exists open source solutions that can create and open truecrypt volumes. All it will take to have alternatives in windows is for windows based block device encryption applications to pick up the format.It is surprising it hasnt happened yet and this drive is completely ignoring this line of thinking.
- shawnz 13y ago
  > We need a secure, reliable, and free solution for them. The only app that currently fills these requirements for Windows is TrueCrypt. What's wrong with BitLocker? EDIT: Keep in mind we are just talking about Windows solutions here. And if Windows is backdoored, it is not going to make much difference if BitLocker is also backdoored by the same agency.
  - chiph 13y ago
    Rampant speculation that it has been back-doored by the NSA. Also, not cross-platform.
- j_s 13y ago
  DiskCryptor has the opposite problem: it's Windows-only. http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en
mavroprovato 13y ago
Personally, I have trouble trusting people who write thngs like "Windowz" and "Winslows" on their product home page.

thex86 13y ago

Cool! Maybe, finally, as a result of public scrutiny, TrueCrypt will have a public repository. You know, it's 2013. I cannot think of any reason why the software you will possibly trust with your life does not have code in a public repository. Till then time, we will and we should doubt it.

voltagex_ 13y ago
If only I could raise 16k to get 7-zip some actual source control, too...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
cantrevealname 13y ago
> the software ... does not have code in a public repository Yes, TrueCrypt should use a revision control system like Git or SVN. However, your comment can be misinterpreted as saying that TrueCrypt doesn't release source code at all. It's worth mentioning that the full source code is available ( here: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2 http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2 ).

dmishe 13y ago

So um how do we know that none of the people conducting this audit are secretly working for NSA? Somewhat james bond-y idea but you get the point.

dublinben 13y ago
In theory, it shouldn't matter. A public audit is public, so the work can be scrutinized by anyone.
tptacek 13y ago
This is the new Slashdot "First Post", isn't it?
- dmishe 13y ago
  What?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Kids these days.
    - officialjunk 13y ago
      Hmm?
    - YuriNiyazov 13y ago
      My god, we are old, Thomas. This is what most graybeards must feel like.
- simias 13y ago
  It's more like the new "imagine a beowulf cluster of these" meme, a comment generic enough that can fit most stories while contributing nothing to the discussion. They could have settled for "I, for one, welcome our new NSA overlords".
krapp 13y ago

laurent123456 13y ago

> There’s just one problem: no one knows who created the software. What do they mean by this? Do we literally don't know who created Truecrypt?

yeukhon 13y ago
One thing for sure it is based on another software. See History (http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/version-history2 http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/version-history2) > 1.0 > February 2, 2004 > Note: TrueCrypt 1.0 is based on E4M (Encryption for the > Masses). Therefore, the following list contains > differences between E4M 2.02a and TrueCrypt 1.0 (minor > differences have been omitted).
cantrevealname 13y ago
> Do we literally don't know who created Truecrypt? Yes, that's right. (The very earliest version was based on work 13 years ago by Paul Le Roux, but it's undergone enormous work since then by some person or group.) TrueCrypt is a popular, carefully designed, well written, well maintained, highly stable and non-trivial application, but its authors are completely unknown. The open source world does have some quiet humble people, but it seems surprising that the authors want to remain totally anonymous for developing a legitimate and well-respected product.
- hrktb 13y ago
  Interesting. About anonymity, there is always the case where you don't want people knocking at your door to ask for backdoors, hidden vulnerabilities or any other requests about the software that you don't want to deal with.
- cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  Same with bitcoin. Is it that good knowledge of cryptography somehow makes the author to hide it's identity?
16s 13y ago
People continually discover this and are shocked to learn that the authors are anonymous. This has been a known fact since at least 2005. The authors of TC are anonymous and have been for a very, very long time.

mynameishere 13y ago

Here's the thing...if any government organization actually goes through a truecrypt backdoor or flaw, the odds are very good that the news will get out. Yeah, if they seize a computer, crack it and never provide the unencrypted information to a court or other public forum (and somehow shut-up the perpetrator), they could keep it secret. But what's the point?

cantrevealname 13y ago
Your claim is that use of decrypted information would reveal the backdoor. I'll offer the Enigma cipher as a counterexample: The British were regularly reading and acting upon encrypted German messages in 1940. It may have changed the course of World War II! The Germans did not learn that the British had broken the code despite German ships being sunk based on the Enigma crack. In fact, nobody in the public knew until 1974. ( ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) A government organization could make good use of a TrueCrypt backdoor without it ever being revealed in court or a public forum. They can act on the information using a pretext for example.
- mynameishere 13y ago
  I'm trying to imagine a parallel circumstance and I cannot. Most governments would not use truecrypt, but rather something they have control of themselves. The people using truecrypt illicitly are ordinary criminals: Gangsters, child pornographers, terrorists (maybe), money-launderers, drug dealers, etc. The information revealed by a crack is not something that can be used in the manner of that by espionage. (ie, it won't tell us that Rommel will be approaching Cairo at such-and-such a date.) Information via espionage can be filtered down as if it were from other intelligence sources, or even guessing. And so the exploit can be concealed as with Ultra. But to use truecrypt against the people who are actually using it for crime you would almost certainly have to reveal the exploit publicly in a court.
  - objclxt 13y ago
    > you would almost certainly have to reveal the exploit publicly in a court. That's definitely not true. Often police and prosecutors will go to great lengths to hide a wiretap from the courts, especially if direct evidence didn't come from it. There have also been many cases where wiretaps haven't been disclosed in court because there may be on-going related operations that require the same surveillance. You don't want to tip people off. I don't see why any potential exploit wouldn't be the same. Here's an example: say you're investigating some organised crime. You learn from a wiretap that the next day one of your informants is going to be killed. You clearly want to prevent the latter without disclosing you've got an active wiretap.

devx 13y ago

I hope they've taken a snapshot of the software before announcing the crowdfunding campaign. If there has been any update since then, and it had any backdoor, it may have already been removed.

kevinpet 13y ago

Apparently TrueCrypt still has the crazy license which no one can quite figure out if it's an amateur attempt to write an open source license, or an extremely subtle trap to lure people into thinking it's an open source license so that they can later sue.

nodata 13y ago
It's not open source: http://opensource.org/licenses http://opensource.org/licenses
- richardfontana 13y ago
  The absence of the TrueCrypt license on the OSI-certified list itself does not signify much, since the license was AFAIK never submitted for OSI approval, but Linux distros among others have raised concerns about several versions of the license in the past, and the current one continues to be problematic IMO. Some recent discussion has been going on on the OSI license-discuss mailing list for those interested: see http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-October/001293.html http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/201... and followup messages. (Disclaimer: am an OSI director and also am Red Hat lawyer who was involved in reviewing and rejecting the TrueCrypt license for Fedora.)
  - nodata 13y ago
    Thanks for the info, there's a lot of old information around. The Wikipedia page seems to indicate you (as Red Hat) have no further objections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt#Licensing_and_Open_Source_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt#Licensing_and_Open_S... - I guess this is wrong. and the OSI minutes page seems to indicate the TrueCrypt license was going to be rejected (maybe I'm misreading this): http://opensource.org/minutes20061213 http://opensource.org/minutes20061213 - but this is from 2006.
    - richardfontana 13y ago
      The assertion that TrueCrypt "has now managed to fix all the problems cited by Red Hat Legal (relayed by Tom Callaway)" is false (I'm not Tom Callaway but I am confident he would agree with me on this). The points I mention in the license-discuss posting yesterday http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-October/001313.html http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/201... were applicable (as far as I can remember) to earlier versions we looked at and as to which we raised concerns to TrueCrypt. As I noted in that posting, TrueCrypt did change some things in response to the barrage of criticism, but not enough.

rdl 13y ago

The best thing someone could do for TrueCrypt security is to very publicly release a version with a backdoor, easily exploited, and difficult to detect, for anyone else to distribute. By making that a real threat, users will end up checking their source/compilation/results, protecting them against the same threat from real attackers.

cantrevealname 13y ago
That might be a cute object lesson in good security practice for the security cognoscenti, but the overwhelming majority of potential users in the world will just throw up their hands in despair and say that we can trust anything and privacy is impossible. If we want ordinary people to benefit from TrueCrypt, a better idea would be to find secure ways of distributing signed and verified copies of the binary. I'm saying binary because most users in the world will be ordinary Windows and Mac users, not software developers. Most people in the world cannot compile from source. Also, as a first step, we need to do this security audit of TrueCrypt.
- rdl 13y ago
  (Not saying auditing truecrypt is bad; I'll probably donate some $ once I get back to the US) This problem already exists, and is actually something Mac App Store, iOS/iTunes store, and Google Play do a pretty good job of solving; I assume there are some similar solutions for Windows (I don't really know the windows consumer software distribution space). The extensions improvements in Chrome/Firefox (and I guess other browsers, but I don't follow them) also are a great step forward toward this. Ubuntu/Debian do a pretty good job of locking down main repositories, too. It's really just a matter of training users that downloading random code from random URLs is risky. Once locked-down distribution hits critical mass, you can probably get away with making it even more difficult and obvious-to-the-user-he-is-doing-something-risky in "sideloading" applications. You can also have corp/org security policies which prohibit this kind of thing. Obviously there are sacrifices for this -- it becomes possible for a platform owner to restrict availability of apps based on non-security considerations, like being anti-porn (Apple), complying with the union of laws of all countries, etc. Or just outright commercial anti-competitiveness (again, mostly Apple...)