16 ms·

True Goodbye: ‘Using TrueCrypt Is Not Secure’

360 points by panarky 12y ago

panarky 12y ago
"[Matthew] Green last year helped spearhead dual crowdfunding efforts to raise money for a full-scale, professional security audit of the software." "'I think the TrueCrypt team did this,' Green said in a phone interview. 'They decided to quit and this is their signature way of doing it.'" "I’m a little worried that the fact we were doing an audit of the crypto might have made them decide to call it quits.”
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I think that's why they are quitting. They didn't want the audit to find something. But it's just a speculation like any other.
  - Spearchucker 12y ago
    I doubt that's the reason - Greene says that the audit is going ahead. The other fact that makes this unlikely is that Green's team has the source, so his team can poke around all it likes anyway. Ergo quitting is no guarantee that something won't be found.
    - unfamiliar 12y ago
      But quitting and hence most likely ending the project will substantially increase the chance that Green decides spending the rest of the money auditing it is a waste of cash.
  - throwaway99812 12y ago
    It's more likely that they were angry that the audit got a lot of funds and they didn't. In OSS often the people who do the original work get nothing and all the money goes to pundits, packagers, and consultants.
    - louthy 12y ago
      If that were true, and they were so sure of the quality of their code then they'd keep going, wait for the all clear and say: "Look, we've been doing this for 10 years, our system is now independently audited, will you please support us..." I suspect that would have brought in a few dollars in the current climate.
      - yebyen 12y ago
        If the system works fine, and the auditors are paid and they have certified that the system works, where is the need for any more financial support? I agree that the work should be recognized, but there is no need to pay to support work that has already been completed, as anyone who's ever applied for a research grant already knows.
      - danielweber 12y ago
        That might make sense in a world of perfectly rational unemotional robots. In the real world, if you worked for years trying to make people safe, and you felt (correctly or not) that you were being disrespected while others were being respected for picking at your nits, you might say "fine, fuck you all, have fun," too. To be clear, I don't know what's going on. A "rage quit" is the most likely scenario IMHO, but this is all very weird. EDIT: On reflection, a rage quit fits my priors, which say "there's no such thing as free-as-in-beer[1] software." So you and I should both be a little skeptical when I find it the likely explanation. [1] It does exists, but it's the exception, and each project where it works has its own particular quirks that make it work. The successful ones typically rely on someone having a particular and unusual mental setup that doesn't mind free loaders. Stallman and de Raadt develop software for their own use, and the rest of us can use it, too.
        comex 12y ago
        Off-topic, but considering the sheer amount of stuff on GitHub, I'm not sure it's about free loaders - whether or not it's useful, the fact that so much code is published demonstrates that many people are okay with it being used by others.
- dsl 12y ago
  That is nonsense. The TrueCrypt developers turned over code and assisted in the initial audit. iSEC found no serious issues. Granted they only evaluated the bootloader under the first contract, but if you were going to slip in a backdoor or if a serious crypto bypass would be possible it would have likely been there.
  - chmars 12y ago
    Which TrueCrypt developers? AFAIK we don't know them yet … and why was it necessary to turn over code for an alleged open source project? iSEC has not found serious issues but that was only phase 1 of the audit.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      It wasn't "Open Source™." The source, however, was available, and you could compile it yourself if you wished. (It was somewhat unusual to compile on Linux, since it started as a Windows GUI project and was then ported to Linux.)
    - dsl 12y ago
      The project was in contact with TrueCrypt developers (someone who could sign messages using the release keys, and provide images of the build machine that is nearly impossible to reproduce). They reviewed the bootloader which is one of the most complex parts and touched all the crypto and found no serious issues. That suggests that the rest of the mundane code is probably in pretty good shape. Of course it is not a guarantee that things are perfect, but it suggests that the developers a) knew what they were doing b) had no issues with an external audit.
- hamburglar 12y ago
  If the audit made them call it quits, then having them cough up the source and abandon the project for someone else to pick up is the perfect outcome.
  - lurkinggrue 12y ago
    We already have the source.
    - hamburglar 12y ago
      We didn't before, though, did we? Or am I mistaken about that?
      - e40 12y ago
        The source tarball was always available for download on truecrypt.org.
nness 12y ago
Out of curiosity, wouldn't the open-source TrueCrypt be better than the closed BitLocker? (assuming, of course, that TrueCrypt was not already compromised)
- Omniusaspirer 12y ago
  That would be my opinion, but then I'd probably bet everything I own on BitLocker containing a backdoor of some sort.
- theboss 12y ago
  There are pros and cons to both closed source and open source. Open source is nice because the community can audit the code and see for themselves, but closed-source is nice because a company generally has the resources to maintain and build software correctly. Both of these are hypothetical, however. We've seen tons of vulnerabilities from both. IMHO Open Source works a lot better on paper but once projects get very large auditing them is really hard...which definitely cuts down on the amount of eyes looking at them.
  - Nursie 12y ago
    >>closed-source is nice because a company generally has the resources to maintain and build software correctly. These two things are orthogonal, IMHO.
    - theboss 12y ago
      My post is "on paper". In reality, projects are squeezed for nickels and dimes. My point is that while open-source should be better, right now it seems that everything is equally not good enough.
- grrowl 12y ago
  I don't believe BitLocker can be considered secure. Cross-post (mine) from the previous thread: > Not "backdoors" but it seems Microsoft stores the BitLocker decryption key, based on this leaked slide (just found on twitter): https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/... > edit: Confirmed Microsoft stores your recovery key on their servers if you're not connected to a domain: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows-8/bitlocker-recov...
ambrop7 12y ago
So what's the (Windows compatible and open source) software to transition systems to?
- gambiting 12y ago
  AS far as I am aware - there isn't one offering the same functionality. Which is what makes it scary, because people all over the world are now left with much less user-friendly choices for encryption.
- narag 12y ago
  Even if there isn't one, I guess you can run Linux in a VM, mount encrypted volumes from it and export the unit.
zaroth 12y ago
Why isn't BitLocker open source? If the new CEO wants to show he's serious about user privacy, I think opening up BitLocker and letting everyone look inside would be a great start. One of the reasons I like iPhone is the idea that the security system and drive encryption is not hopelessly broken. It would be great to have the same level of confidence in BitLocker.
- mehrdada 12y ago
  > One of the reasons I like iPhone is the idea that the security system and drive encryption is not hopelessly broken. Where can you get the source of that?
  - chmars 12y ago
    There is no source for that. Data on iOS devices is not even fully encrypted and accessible to law enforcement agencies etc.
- runn1ng 12y ago
  iPhone security system is open-source?
dan_bk 12y ago
Sounds like what happened to LavaBit (some sort of gov't pressure).
- pekk 12y ago
  When you know literally nothing, it doesn't sound like anything.
blueskin_ 12y ago
This seems highly suspicious, especially the recommendation of BitLocker, a product we have little to no evidence does what it says and after PRISM, have no reason to trust[2]; not to mention it being limited to a (very small subset of) Windows platforms vs. TrueCrypt's cross-platform functionality. If this was legit[1], it'd probably be directing people to one of the other TrueCrypt-like programs. [1]The new version posted is almost certainly compromised; don't download it, or at the very least, run it in a VM on non-networked hardware you can reimage after finishing using. [2]Edit: Forgot this before, but BitLocker is definitely completely broken as it sends your recovery key to MS anyway ( https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/... ).
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  A screenshot that says "We have the recovery key", but zero indication of how they got it? The previous slide could not possibly be something related to dumping RAM, could it? Or perhaps an optional Microsoft-account feature to back up your encryption keys. Something that most normal users would want, just like they want it on Apple devices? Because a lot of common users aren't going to want FDE if it means "oh and lose your key and say goodbye to your data". As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems.
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    No, bitlocker explicitly send the key to MS for non-domain systems - as such, I would guess it potentially still does for those on a domain too, it'd just be kept quieter. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recov... Bitlocker is not trustworthy as an overall method of FDE.
    - weinzierl 12y ago
      Your link says "There are several locations in which your BitLocker recovery key might have been saved." and then mentions "Your Microsoft account online.". Do you know under which conditions this happens?
deleted 12y ago
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mhogomchungu 12y ago
TrueCrypt encrypted volume format is well known and there are tools out there that can create TrueCrypt volumes and open them. There is tcplay[1]. This project can create and open TrueCrypt volumes. There is cryptsetup[2].This is a linux native solution for block device encryption and supports opening of TrueCrypt volumes. The above two projects and command line based and there is a third project called zuluCrypt[3] that gives a GUI front end to the two projects. I am not aware of any alternative solutions in windows or OSX that does support TrueCrypt encrypted format but adding support for it should not be that hard. This maybe the end of line for TrueCrypt as a project,but its encrypted volume format may still be used as a "universal cross platform encrypted volume format". Somebody should file a bug report in projects that deal with block device encryption in windows and OSX and ask them to support this format as i think the format should live on as its the only one that is widely used and supported. [1] https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play [2] https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ [3] https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/
personalcompute 12y ago
Previous discussion from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7812133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7812133
deleted 12y ago
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pling 12y ago
Well this is good for me. I currently use a TrueCyrypt encrypted exFAT volume for backups. My motivation is now to move this to an open source system (probably dm-crypt). This and RDP is the only reason I'm hanging onto windows and that's purely out of apathy. The suggestion of using BitLocker is a bit insulting (this might just be comedy value from TC though). Every other bit of software I use is portable or in a Linux VM already. So my weekend project is now to move all my stuff to Debian.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- darklajid 12y ago
  RDP: Is there anything freerdp cannot do that you need from day to day? I'm working with Windows, but run Linux without any issues so far.
  - pling 12y ago
    We have an RDP gateway which is an awful pile of shit to deal with as it uses HTTPS initiated MSRPC as the transport layer. FreeRDP doesn't work properly with that yet as there are all sorts of odd configuration and encryption things that are almost impossible to line up properly when your ops team don't actually know what they're doing or how to find out stuff for you.
    - jackweirdy 12y ago
      Ugh; I remember having that problem a couple of years ago. In the end I had to split a room of thin clients in half, and have them each point at 1 of 2 hosts. Defeating the point of load balancing entirely :/
- wazoox 12y ago
  There's an RDP client under Linux, and you can use nx as a server, it's nearly as efficient as RDP.
  - 12y ago
AhtiK 12y ago
"BitlLocker, the proprietary disk encryption program that ships with every Windows version since Vista." This is misleading - Windows 7 product line has Bitlocker only for Ultimate and Enterprise. Even Windows 7 Professional users cannot use Bitlocker without upgrading to Ultimate. Very unfortunate.
- lucb1e 12y ago
  > Very unfortunate. I wouldn't actually say that, but I see what you mean.
- wahsd 12y ago
  There has been a suggestion that the sourceforge post is a canary triggered in a "self-destruct" sequence. I am wondering if the suggestion to use bitLocker, which as you point out is not available to everyone, is also a signal. I want to suggest reading into it something that doesn't exist, but why would TrueCrypt people, if they are what we want them to be, suggest using bitLocker of all things. No better alternative and better than nothing??? I don't know how I feel about that.
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    Their "suggestions" for Linux and Mac OS seem just as fishy, almost like done on purpose to raise suspicion and hint that something bad is going on: https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/471998315437883392 https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/47199831543788339... http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/26pz9b/truecrypt_development_has_ended_052814/chtfb30 http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/26pz9b/truecrypt_dev...
mhogomchungu 12y ago
Somebody who has been following TrueCrypt closely seem to think the project lost momentum and they just decided to call it quit.Their comment is on slashdot and the link is: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5212985&cid=47115785 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5212985&cid=47115785
- Spearchucker 12y ago
  Makes the most sense yet. The question that was asked in response to that Slashdot post was why anyone would choose to quit the way they did (unprofessional and so on), and this doesn't sway me. If I lost my star dev and couldn't follow the code myself I might (speculation, as ever) well be petulant enough for this mess. There may be any number of factors behind it, ranging from animosity within the team to fear or self-doubt.
  - mjolk 12y ago
    I don't see this as particularly unprofessional or petulant. The owner/manager of the project didn't want to keep maintaining it and is redirecting users to an alternative that will work for almost all use cases. As of last month, there were reported flaws in TrueCrypt and there's nothing that forces a maintainer of a free project to keep going. I'm left almost a little annoyed that the conversation isn't "RIP TrueCrypt project, thank you goes out to the maintainers for helping people feel more secure for years."
    - Spearchucker 12y ago
      Not saying it is (unprofessional or petulant). I'm saying these are but two possibilities. Of many.
    - unfamiliar 12y ago
      You can't just post an announcement like that in the current climate of suspicion and expect everyone to just ignore the possible implications.
      - 12y ago
AhtiK 12y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/*/truecrypt.org http://web.archive.org/web/*/truecrypt.org "Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine." :-)
- T-A 12y ago
  That's funny. The normal technique for telling the Wayback Machine not to archive would result in the message "Page cannot be crawled or displayed due to robots.txt.". How do you get "excluded" this way?
  - trebor 12y ago
    I don't know about the message, but you can ask for your site to be removed from the Wayback Machine.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
bak3dj0 12y ago
Maybe the developers were Americans and they decided to bail before they get caught for exporting cryptographic software.
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  > Maybe the developers were Americans and they decided to bail before they get caught for exporting cryptographic software. ...or shutting down TrueCrypt was part of the plea-bargain. Either that or gitmo one way from the land of the formerly free. alt.conspiracy.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  Wasn't that settled in like 1996?
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    From Wikipedia [0]: As of 2009, non-military cryptography exports from the U.S. are controlled by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.[9] Some restrictions still exist, even for mass market products, particularly with regard to export to "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. Militarized encryption equipment, TEMPEST-approved electronics, custom cryptographic software, and even cryptographic consulting services still require an export license[9](pp. 6–7). Furthermore, encryption registration with the BIS is required for the export of "mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits" (75 F.R. 36494). In addition, other items require a one-time review by or notification to BIS prior to export to most countries.[9] For instance, the BIS must be notified before open-source cryptographic software is made publicly available on the Internet, though no review is required.[10] Export regulations have been relaxed from pre-1996 standards, but are still complex.[9] Other countries, notably those participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement,[11] have similar restrictions.[12] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the... [9] http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/ccl5-pt2.pdf http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/ccl5-pt2.pdf [10] http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/pubavailencsourcecodenofify.html http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/pubavailencsourcecodenofif... [11] http://www.wassenaar.org/participants/index.html http://www.wassenaar.org/participants/index.html [12] http://www.wassenaar.org/guidelines/docs/Initial%20Elements%20-%202009.pdf http://www.wassenaar.org/guidelines/docs/Initial%20Elements%...
cornholio 12y ago
Truecrypt is dead, long live ChipCrypt: a Truecrypt fork with TRESOR and scrypt built in. TRESOR is a technique that keeps the volume key strictly in the CPU registers and not in RAM. This completely prevents RAM freezing and related attacks. A running computer that is locked cannot be trivially decrypted anymore by dumping it's RAM. Scrypt is an advanced password derivation function that makes even trivial passwords very hard to bruteforce. A scrypt derived key is 20000 times harder to crack than the equivalent PBKDF2 derived key of the same password. The TrueCrypt license is not GPL compatible but it allows redistribution in source form as long as the software is not called "TrueCrypt". Who's up for it ?
- dchest 12y ago
  These two (TRESOR and scrypt) are incompatible, unless you allow for some time period where keys can be extracted. The point of scrypt is to be sequentially memory-hard: it mixes password and salt in a huge amount of RAM and makes it impossible to not use RAM for this operation.
  - cornholio 12y ago
    I would say "complementary" not "incompatible". Once you have derived the key you can clear the RAM and keep the key on the CPU chip only. So there's a vulnerability window of a few seconds during which the key (or key related material) is stored in RAM, after which it can no longer be recovered. In sharp contrast with regular TrueCrypt where the master volume key is stored in RAM all the time. It's already standard operating procedure for law enforcement to time raids when the computers are in use and make a dump of the machine RAM.
    - blueskin_ 12y ago
      Agreed. Only doing operations involving transferring the key to RAM when the user is present should mitigate it, perhaps with a prominent WARNING dialog showing when memory is vulnerable, and overwriting the memory locations used for the key when done.
Eye_of_Mordor 12y ago
Perhaps TrueCrypt was an NSA scam all along, 'retiring' before they're found out? Worse still, a Russian/Chinese scam!
- J_Darnley 12y ago
  Why is that worse?
  - logicallee 12y ago
    America has rule of law and the NSA had to go rogue to do what it did; once their program was outed it's on all news, everyone is discussing; Americans enjoy real rights. If China or Russia had the same capabilities there would not be any theoretical backlash against this being discovered, since par for the course there is far less freedom. It's not the abstraction that's promised even theoretically. This is the same reason why it's better when Google (with its nominal "do no evil" strategy) turned out to collect wifi data with its street cars, which is not as bad as if Microsoft (with no such policy or mission) had done the same thing.
    - Bustard 12y ago
      LOL! You fucking retard. I much prefer the russians or China have my stuff to the megalomaniac US going around all over thwe world killing people or suing them to bankruptcy.
    - J_Darnley 12y ago
      It might be limited in its actions against Americans but that doesn't make me feel any better. Also the program may have been outed but, it looks like some people are keen to keep it running and possibly make it actually legal
      - logicallee 12y ago
        (Oh, I was just answering your literal question, very narrowly.)
codeulike 12y ago
Are there any decent alternatives to TrueCrypt for Windows that aren't Bitlocker? http://superuser.com/questions/760091/windows-encrypted-virtual-hard-drive-but-not-bitlocker-or-truecrypt http://superuser.com/questions/760091/windows-encrypted-virt...
- conductor 12y ago
  DiskCryptor (GPLv3) - https://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page https://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page The author seems to be an anonymous Russian-speaking person. Another option is FreeOTFE - http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeotfe.mirror/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeotfe.mirror/ It is compatible with Linux's LUKS and dm-crypt, and it doesn't support system partition encryption.
  - awakened 12y ago
    FreeOTFE (which was developed by a woman named Sarah Dean... who by the way also had a large TrueCrypt archive) is no longer developed. She stopped responding to email about a year ago and her domains went away too. http://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/1ciopg/freeotfe_account_suspended/ http://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/1ciopg/freeotfe_acco... The Way Back Machine has an old copy of her FreeOTFE website (freeotfe.org): https://web.archive.org/web/20130531062457/http://freeotfe.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130531062457/http://freeotfe.o...
- tim333 12y ago
  https://www.deslock.com/ https://www.deslock.com/ Proprietary but I used their free stuff for years
- hdivider 12y ago
  How about AxCrypt for file encryption? http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ (I phrase this as a question because it'd be great if we could have some HN skepticism on this thing. Personally, I think everything basically checks out: open source, free, there's a name, phone number, address, picture etc.)
sekasi 12y ago
Is this a warrant canary?
- mikecb 12y ago
  no.
- danielweber 12y ago
  A warrant is how the government compels you to turn over evidence you have. TrueCrypt does not have any access to its users' keys or data. If we really really stretch, TrueCrypt had server logs that would show who downloaded it that they might be compelled to turn over. This would be an overreaction to such a request.
TempleOS 12y ago
http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Kernel/Compress.html http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Kernel/Compress.html
abcd_f 12y ago
That's LavaBit 2. I've been a long time TC user and if there's the trait it has it's the quality and a high degree of polish. And now looking at the diff and the screenshot of that in-app "Not secure" message, the polish is just not there. It feels like it was something that was slapped together in a rush or by someone who's not an original developer. The SF page alone is a big red flag. If you compare its nearly hysterical tone and ridiculous BitLocker advice to the tone and content of the actual app, they don't add up at all. This leaves us with a handful of discrepancies between the last good state of the project and what's out there now. So it's either someone else's hackjob or it is original and the discrepancies are intentional. Then, factor in the .exe sig match, and it pretty much leaves only the latter option - the original devs made an absurdly non-TC-like release. The question is "why?"
- selmnoo 12y ago
  This is a pretty confusing case, hard to make much of it, LavaBit 2 is of course a possibility. But while we're making these theories, I wanna sound my wild theory: Considering that: (1) TrueCrypt authors go to great to keep their identities hidden, and (2) it turns out TrueCrypt is not free/open software -- TrueCrypt is actually a project by some spooky 3-letter agency. But anyway, thoughts on alternatives? CiskCryptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiskCryptor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiskCryptor) sounds like a nice one, it's FLOSS. Thoughts on it?
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    I really don't think we need to be running to TrueCrypt alternatives quite yet. If Phase II of the audit comes back showing TrueCrypt as insecure, then it's time to start worrying about that, but given that everyone was happy to keep using TrueCrypt up until 1 day ago even though it hasn't been updated in over 2 years, I don't think there's any big rush to switch to something else even if ongoing development stops.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - 12y ago
stefan 12y ago
Any opinion on "Tomb"? http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ It tries to be a nice LUKS wrapper with container and key files.
gcv 12y ago
Now that this party is over, does anyone know any wrappers for using gpg-zip with some of the degree of convenience of TrueCrypt — at least, for the limited case of keeping directories conveniently encrypted and useable?
neves 12y ago
Maybe it is because Bruce Schneier uses and recomends it: https://www.schneier.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?tag=TrueCrypt https://www.schneier.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?tag=TrueCr...
DanBC 12y ago
I'm not particularly looking forward to a slew of poorly coded alternatives to TC, or to endless discussions about whether or not something actually is FDE.
pppp 12y ago
Here's my theory (step-by-step): 1. Truecrypt is a gigantic pain-in-the-side for US intelligence agencies. 2. Intelligence agencies brainstorm about the best way to deal with the situation. 3. Taking over and tampering with the current code is deemed unrealistic. The user base of Truecrypt is very sophisticated and even minor changes to the source code would be scrutinized. 4. "How can be get people to stop using Truecrypt?" "We can discredit the project - get people to voluntarily stop using it because they don't trust it".
- DanBC 12y ago
  Your (1) partly fails because they'd just toss you in jail until you hand over the key. If they think you're a terrorist that jail might be overseas with no access to lawyers. If they think you're a paedophile they'll just leak that info (and this your life is destroyed). Also, "Truecrypt properly used is a gigantic pain" and although I have nothing to support it I reckon many people use it incorrectly. Has anyone done any research? See "deanonymizing alt.anonymous.messages" for examples of people doing crypto wrong.
  - knodi123 12y ago
    Or they could simply use rubber-hose cryptanalysis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis
  - dendory 12y ago
    Actually I disagree. The NSA is all about spying. If they can't decrypt what you do without going to you and asking you for the keys (or throwing you in jail) then I would say it -is- a major pain for them. Remember we're talking about an agency who routinely targets one person in the hope to find dirt on others.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      On the other hand, the NSA is all about spying. If they can't encrypt their data and keep it secret, they can never get the upper hand. (The most valuable information is info your enemy doesn't know you know. Information your enemy knows you know is not as powerful)
awakened 12y ago
E4M - Encryption For the Masses is free software that TrueCrypt was based on. It's free to fork as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M
noarchy 12y ago
If the TrueCrypt devs are done with the project, is there anything legally preventing others from restarting development on it? I know the software had an oddball license that wasn't always well-received. My point here being, with the source being available, why do we need to assume that TrueCrypt is history, other than perhaps a lack of people willing to work on it (which I assume could change now that there is an immediate need for some)?
drKarl 12y ago
Would it be feasible to use encrypted docker containers as a cross-platform encrypted container solution?
- DigitalJack 12y ago
  how would that work on windows? run linux in a vm and share over samba?
jxf 12y ago
My current favorite insane/facetious conspiracy theory on this: "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s ... TrueCrypt is (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s ... (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s TrueCrypt is (n) (s) (a)
- ToastyMallows 12y ago
  Obligatory Half-Life 3 is confirmed, 9/11 was an inside job, etc. etc.
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    Yeah seriously, take of your tin-foil hat, why would the NSA be interested in an encryption product? Oh, wait, it's entirely feasible.
- verytrivial 12y ago
  Well the very next sentence continues "This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt" which could easily be read as a prepared response to the person brandishing the NSL who is now annoyed that the authors have suddenly decided that right NOW is an 'entirely natural' time to end the project.
- ParkerK 12y ago
  Another interesting thing is that in the diff for 7.1a and 7.2 the author changed U.S. to United States several times. Some people think this is to draw attention to it being related to the US government
  - danielweber 12y ago
    But other people point out that Visual Studio changed its default name for America from the former to the latter.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I love this game! "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." "WARNING: Using True(C)rypt (i)s not secure (a)s ..." (C) (i) (a) Again! "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt i(s) n(o)t (s)ecure as ..." (s) (o) (s)
lurkinggrue 12y ago
Lets just fork the sucker and call it a day. They developer is anonymous and if he wanted to stop people he would have to reveal his identity and that is not going to happen.
tzs 12y ago
Well, if we are going to speculate, I'll offer a guess: the crowd funded security audit made the developers lose their enthusiasm. I believe I read in another thread that TrueCrypt did not get many donations. I'd be a bit depressed if I worked long and hard on a project that people seemed to appreciate, but not enough to crack open their wallets and toss a few bucks my way, and then some third party comes along and quickly raises $70k to audit my code.
- alex_duf 12y ago
  That also seems very possible.
- krek 12y ago
  Yep. And reading the pdf for phase 1 of the audit, worth about $40k, the findings didn't seem very impressive. Specifically the readability portion where they give a critique of naming conventions in the code. I could see the developers figuring for that money they could've done a lot more good with it.
- e40 12y ago
  I believe I read in another thread that TrueCrypt did not get many donations Given the anonymity of the developer(s), how would anyone know this? However, the downside of being anonymous is that it makes it hard to ask for donations (in places other than your website). If, and it's a big if, the reason for them throwing in the towel like this, was compensation, I think it would have been handled a lot of other ways. My money is on an NSL and this was their way of telling us about it.
seyfarth 12y ago
Is there any reason this cannot just be forked?
- ixwt 12y ago
  The license.
zvrba 12y ago
I can't think of a reason why they'd remove sources for earlier versions from SF. I mean, in this day and age somebody is going to upload them again to the internet.
- skolor 12y ago
  Considering the licensing, its likely that the developers wanted to keep development to themselves, and never turn it over to someone else. If the ragequit theory is correct, its fairly reasonable for them to remove the previous versions to make a fork slightly more difficult, especially since it would be an illegitimate fork.
  - zvrba 12y ago
    It doesn't add up. You can't (easily) enforce licensing while remaining anonymous, so why bother with removing the earlier versions? If ragequitting, why bother with making a new release instead of just removing _everything_ and changing the webpage? (Presumably, you already have a copy of the SW if you have encrypted volumes.) Also, note "you _should_ migrate data". Could this imply that cold storage is not secure?
    - skolor 12y ago
      The kind of person I can see maintaining Truecrypt for a decade I can also see making this decision. They're upset and are completely done with the project. They take down all the old versions, knowing that the licensing means they're largely useless for purposes of forking (unless you want to violate the licensing, which causes questions to the validity of the fork). Despite their frustration with the project, they still deeply care about crypto and keeping their users secure, so they publish some brief recommendations on alternatives, and release a read-only version of their software to support it. There are any number of possible vulnerabilities that could exist. Its definitely a plausible possibility. I could fairly easily believe that they were contacted by a researcher who was about to publish a major AES flaw, or one of the other algorithms in use. There's a number of relatively plausible theories. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out for 20 years what the actual reason for this was, when the developer is on their deathbed.
stordoff 12y ago
Reading through the posted diff, a couple of things stood out to me. 1. The release date string went from "February 7, 2012" in 7.1a to "5/2014" in 7.2 . Might be nothing, but it made me wonder if someone other than the orignal author changed it due to the date style change - I'd've expected it to be changed to "February 2014". I also wonder why no specific day was given - makes me wonder if the release was automated and the author didn't know exactly when it would happen (possibly a dead man's switch triggered it?). Again, could be nothing. 2. Pretty much every reference to truecrypt.org has been removed - even the licence now states "Your Product [...] must not present any Internet address containing the domain name truecrypt" (instead of truecrypt.org), and there is no requirement to link to it anymore. It might just be a change in licencing stance to encourage forks, or, if the release was made under duress (NSL/threats/blackmail etc.), it might be a way to try and signal that truecrypt.org can no longer be trusted. Edit: Something is bugging me about this line on the site: "The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP." IT might just how the author writes, but my reaction on reading "was ended" was that something external forced it to stop rather than it being a choice. Also, why mention XP's EOL? The message doesn't say support for TC stopped _because_ of EOL, just after, and I can't think why the end of XP support would effect TC greatly.
23jimbo 12y ago
Was not one of the selling points of truecrypt its ability to provide 'plausable deniability'? That is not so common in other crypto-products.

360 points by panarky 12y ago

"[Matthew] Green last year helped spearhead dual crowdfunding efforts to raise money for a full-scale, professional security audit of the software." "'I think the TrueCrypt team did this,' Green said in a phone interview. 'They decided to quit and this is their signature way of doing it.'" "I’m a little worried that the fact we were doing an audit of the crypto might have made them decide to call it quits.”

higherpurpose 12y ago
I think that's why they are quitting. They didn't want the audit to find something. But it's just a speculation like any other.
- Spearchucker 12y ago
  I doubt that's the reason - Greene says that the audit is going ahead. The other fact that makes this unlikely is that Green's team has the source, so his team can poke around all it likes anyway. Ergo quitting is no guarantee that something won't be found.
  - unfamiliar 12y ago
    But quitting and hence most likely ending the project will substantially increase the chance that Green decides spending the rest of the money auditing it is a waste of cash.
- throwaway99812 12y ago
  It's more likely that they were angry that the audit got a lot of funds and they didn't. In OSS often the people who do the original work get nothing and all the money goes to pundits, packagers, and consultants.
  - louthy 12y ago
    If that were true, and they were so sure of the quality of their code then they'd keep going, wait for the all clear and say: "Look, we've been doing this for 10 years, our system is now independently audited, will you please support us..." I suspect that would have brought in a few dollars in the current climate.
    - yebyen 12y ago
      If the system works fine, and the auditors are paid and they have certified that the system works, where is the need for any more financial support? I agree that the work should be recognized, but there is no need to pay to support work that has already been completed, as anyone who's ever applied for a research grant already knows.
    - danielweber 12y ago
      That might make sense in a world of perfectly rational unemotional robots. In the real world, if you worked for years trying to make people safe, and you felt (correctly or not) that you were being disrespected while others were being respected for picking at your nits, you might say "fine, fuck you all, have fun," too. To be clear, I don't know what's going on. A "rage quit" is the most likely scenario IMHO, but this is all very weird. EDIT: On reflection, a rage quit fits my priors, which say "there's no such thing as free-as-in-beer[1] software." So you and I should both be a little skeptical when I find it the likely explanation. [1] It does exists, but it's the exception, and each project where it works has its own particular quirks that make it work. The successful ones typically rely on someone having a particular and unusual mental setup that doesn't mind free loaders. Stallman and de Raadt develop software for their own use, and the rest of us can use it, too.
      - comex 12y ago
        Off-topic, but considering the sheer amount of stuff on GitHub, I'm not sure it's about free loaders - whether or not it's useful, the fact that so much code is published demonstrates that many people are okay with it being used by others.
dsl 12y ago
That is nonsense. The TrueCrypt developers turned over code and assisted in the initial audit. iSEC found no serious issues. Granted they only evaluated the bootloader under the first contract, but if you were going to slip in a backdoor or if a serious crypto bypass would be possible it would have likely been there.
- chmars 12y ago
  Which TrueCrypt developers? AFAIK we don't know them yet … and why was it necessary to turn over code for an alleged open source project? iSEC has not found serious issues but that was only phase 1 of the audit.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    It wasn't "Open Source™." The source, however, was available, and you could compile it yourself if you wished. (It was somewhat unusual to compile on Linux, since it started as a Windows GUI project and was then ported to Linux.)
  - dsl 12y ago
    The project was in contact with TrueCrypt developers (someone who could sign messages using the release keys, and provide images of the build machine that is nearly impossible to reproduce). They reviewed the bootloader which is one of the most complex parts and touched all the crypto and found no serious issues. That suggests that the rest of the mundane code is probably in pretty good shape. Of course it is not a guarantee that things are perfect, but it suggests that the developers a) knew what they were doing b) had no issues with an external audit.
hamburglar 12y ago
If the audit made them call it quits, then having them cough up the source and abandon the project for someone else to pick up is the perfect outcome.
- lurkinggrue 12y ago
  We already have the source.
  - hamburglar 12y ago
    We didn't before, though, did we? Or am I mistaken about that?
    - e40 12y ago
      The source tarball was always available for download on truecrypt.org.

nness 12y ago

Out of curiosity, wouldn't the open-source TrueCrypt be better than the closed BitLocker? (assuming, of course, that TrueCrypt was not already compromised)

Omniusaspirer 12y ago
That would be my opinion, but then I'd probably bet everything I own on BitLocker containing a backdoor of some sort.
theboss 12y ago
There are pros and cons to both closed source and open source. Open source is nice because the community can audit the code and see for themselves, but closed-source is nice because a company generally has the resources to maintain and build software correctly. Both of these are hypothetical, however. We've seen tons of vulnerabilities from both. IMHO Open Source works a lot better on paper but once projects get very large auditing them is really hard...which definitely cuts down on the amount of eyes looking at them.
- Nursie 12y ago
  >>closed-source is nice because a company generally has the resources to maintain and build software correctly. These two things are orthogonal, IMHO.
  - theboss 12y ago
    My post is "on paper". In reality, projects are squeezed for nickels and dimes. My point is that while open-source should be better, right now it seems that everything is equally not good enough.
grrowl 12y ago
I don't believe BitLocker can be considered secure. Cross-post (mine) from the previous thread: > Not "backdoors" but it seems Microsoft stores the BitLocker decryption key, based on this leaked slide (just found on twitter): https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/... > edit: Confirmed Microsoft stores your recovery key on their servers if you're not connected to a domain: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows-8/bitlocker-recov...

ambrop7 12y ago

So what's the (Windows compatible and open source) software to transition systems to?

gambiting 12y ago
AS far as I am aware - there isn't one offering the same functionality. Which is what makes it scary, because people all over the world are now left with much less user-friendly choices for encryption.
narag 12y ago
Even if there isn't one, I guess you can run Linux in a VM, mount encrypted volumes from it and export the unit.

zaroth 12y ago

Why isn't BitLocker open source? If the new CEO wants to show he's serious about user privacy, I think opening up BitLocker and letting everyone look inside would be a great start. One of the reasons I like iPhone is the idea that the security system and drive encryption is not hopelessly broken. It would be great to have the same level of confidence in BitLocker.

mehrdada 12y ago
> One of the reasons I like iPhone is the idea that the security system and drive encryption is not hopelessly broken. Where can you get the source of that?
- chmars 12y ago
  There is no source for that. Data on iOS devices is not even fully encrypted and accessible to law enforcement agencies etc.
runn1ng 12y ago
iPhone security system is open-source?

dan_bk 12y ago

Sounds like what happened to LavaBit (some sort of gov't pressure).

pekk 12y ago
When you know literally nothing, it doesn't sound like anything.

blueskin_ 12y ago

This seems highly suspicious, especially the recommendation of BitLocker, a product we have little to no evidence does what it says and after PRISM, have no reason to trust[2]; not to mention it being limited to a (very small subset of) Windows platforms vs. TrueCrypt's cross-platform functionality. If this was legit[1], it'd probably be directing people to one of the other TrueCrypt-like programs. [1]The new version posted is almost certainly compromised; don't download it, or at the very least, run it in a VM on non-networked hardware you can reimage after finishing using. [2]Edit: Forgot this before, but BitLocker is definitely completely broken as it sends your recovery key to MS anyway ( https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/photo/1 https://twitter.com/TheBlogPirate/status/471759810644283392/... ).

MichaelGG 12y ago
A screenshot that says "We have the recovery key", but zero indication of how they got it? The previous slide could not possibly be something related to dumping RAM, could it? Or perhaps an optional Microsoft-account feature to back up your encryption keys. Something that most normal users would want, just like they want it on Apple devices? Because a lot of common users aren't going to want FDE if it means "oh and lose your key and say goodbye to your data". As far as I know, there's only been speculation on what PRISM is. Nothing that suggests it couldn't be a frontend to CALEA or warrant-based systems.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  No, bitlocker explicitly send the key to MS for non-domain systems - as such, I would guess it potentially still does for those on a domain too, it'd just be kept quieter. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recovery-keys-faq http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-recov... Bitlocker is not trustworthy as an overall method of FDE.
  - weinzierl 12y ago
    Your link says "There are several locations in which your BitLocker recovery key might have been saved." and then mentions "Your Microsoft account online.". Do you know under which conditions this happens?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mhogomchungu 12y ago

TrueCrypt encrypted volume format is well known and there are tools out there that can create TrueCrypt volumes and open them. There is tcplay[1]. This project can create and open TrueCrypt volumes. There is cryptsetup[2].This is a linux native solution for block device encryption and supports opening of TrueCrypt volumes. The above two projects and command line based and there is a third project called zuluCrypt[3] that gives a GUI front end to the two projects. I am not aware of any alternative solutions in windows or OSX that does support TrueCrypt encrypted format but adding support for it should not be that hard. This maybe the end of line for TrueCrypt as a project,but its encrypted volume format may still be used as a "universal cross platform encrypted volume format". Somebody should file a bug report in projects that deal with block device encryption in windows and OSX and ask them to support this format as i think the format should live on as its the only one that is widely used and supported. [1] https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play [2] https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/ [3] https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/ https://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/

personalcompute 12y ago

Previous discussion from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7812133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7812133

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pling 12y ago

Well this is good for me. I currently use a TrueCyrypt encrypted exFAT volume for backups. My motivation is now to move this to an open source system (probably dm-crypt). This and RDP is the only reason I'm hanging onto windows and that's purely out of apathy. The suggestion of using BitLocker is a bit insulting (this might just be comedy value from TC though). Every other bit of software I use is portable or in a Linux VM already. So my weekend project is now to move all my stuff to Debian.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
darklajid 12y ago
RDP: Is there anything freerdp cannot do that you need from day to day? I'm working with Windows, but run Linux without any issues so far.
- pling 12y ago
  We have an RDP gateway which is an awful pile of shit to deal with as it uses HTTPS initiated MSRPC as the transport layer. FreeRDP doesn't work properly with that yet as there are all sorts of odd configuration and encryption things that are almost impossible to line up properly when your ops team don't actually know what they're doing or how to find out stuff for you.
  - jackweirdy 12y ago
    Ugh; I remember having that problem a couple of years ago. In the end I had to split a room of thin clients in half, and have them each point at 1 of 2 hosts. Defeating the point of load balancing entirely :/
wazoox 12y ago
There's an RDP client under Linux, and you can use nx as a server, it's nearly as efficient as RDP.
- 12y ago

AhtiK 12y ago

"BitlLocker, the proprietary disk encryption program that ships with every Windows version since Vista." This is misleading - Windows 7 product line has Bitlocker only for Ultimate and Enterprise. Even Windows 7 Professional users cannot use Bitlocker without upgrading to Ultimate. Very unfortunate.

lucb1e 12y ago
> Very unfortunate. I wouldn't actually say that, but I see what you mean.
wahsd 12y ago
There has been a suggestion that the sourceforge post is a canary triggered in a "self-destruct" sequence. I am wondering if the suggestion to use bitLocker, which as you point out is not available to everyone, is also a signal. I want to suggest reading into it something that doesn't exist, but why would TrueCrypt people, if they are what we want them to be, suggest using bitLocker of all things. No better alternative and better than nothing??? I don't know how I feel about that.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Their "suggestions" for Linux and Mac OS seem just as fishy, almost like done on purpose to raise suspicion and hint that something bad is going on: https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/471998315437883392 https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/47199831543788339... http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/26pz9b/truecrypt_development_has_ended_052814/chtfb30 http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/26pz9b/truecrypt_dev...

mhogomchungu 12y ago

Somebody who has been following TrueCrypt closely seem to think the project lost momentum and they just decided to call it quit.Their comment is on slashdot and the link is: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5212985&cid=47115785 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5212985&cid=47115785

Spearchucker 12y ago
Makes the most sense yet. The question that was asked in response to that Slashdot post was why anyone would choose to quit the way they did (unprofessional and so on), and this doesn't sway me. If I lost my star dev and couldn't follow the code myself I might (speculation, as ever) well be petulant enough for this mess. There may be any number of factors behind it, ranging from animosity within the team to fear or self-doubt.
- mjolk 12y ago
  I don't see this as particularly unprofessional or petulant. The owner/manager of the project didn't want to keep maintaining it and is redirecting users to an alternative that will work for almost all use cases. As of last month, there were reported flaws in TrueCrypt and there's nothing that forces a maintainer of a free project to keep going. I'm left almost a little annoyed that the conversation isn't "RIP TrueCrypt project, thank you goes out to the maintainers for helping people feel more secure for years."
  - Spearchucker 12y ago
    Not saying it is (unprofessional or petulant). I'm saying these are but two possibilities. Of many.
  - unfamiliar 12y ago
    You can't just post an announcement like that in the current climate of suspicion and expect everyone to just ignore the possible implications.
    - 12y ago

AhtiK 12y ago

http://web.archive.org/web/*/truecrypt.org http://web.archive.org/web/*/truecrypt.org "Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine." :-)

T-A 12y ago
That's funny. The normal technique for telling the Wayback Machine not to archive would result in the message "Page cannot be crawled or displayed due to robots.txt.". How do you get "excluded" this way?
- trebor 12y ago
  I don't know about the message, but you can ask for your site to be removed from the Wayback Machine.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

bak3dj0 12y ago

Maybe the developers were Americans and they decided to bail before they get caught for exporting cryptographic software.

draugadrotten 12y ago
> Maybe the developers were Americans and they decided to bail before they get caught for exporting cryptographic software. ...or shutting down TrueCrypt was part of the plea-bargain. Either that or gitmo one way from the land of the formerly free. alt.conspiracy.
spiritplumber 12y ago
Wasn't that settled in like 1996?
- joshstrange 12y ago
  From Wikipedia [0]: As of 2009, non-military cryptography exports from the U.S. are controlled by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.[9] Some restrictions still exist, even for mass market products, particularly with regard to export to "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. Militarized encryption equipment, TEMPEST-approved electronics, custom cryptographic software, and even cryptographic consulting services still require an export license[9](pp. 6–7). Furthermore, encryption registration with the BIS is required for the export of "mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits" (75 F.R. 36494). In addition, other items require a one-time review by or notification to BIS prior to export to most countries.[9] For instance, the BIS must be notified before open-source cryptographic software is made publicly available on the Internet, though no review is required.[10] Export regulations have been relaxed from pre-1996 standards, but are still complex.[9] Other countries, notably those participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement,[11] have similar restrictions.[12] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the... [9] http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/ccl5-pt2.pdf http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/ccl5-pt2.pdf [10] http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/pubavailencsourcecodenofify.html http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/pubavailencsourcecodenofif... [11] http://www.wassenaar.org/participants/index.html http://www.wassenaar.org/participants/index.html [12] http://www.wassenaar.org/guidelines/docs/Initial%20Elements%20-%202009.pdf http://www.wassenaar.org/guidelines/docs/Initial%20Elements%...

cornholio 12y ago

Truecrypt is dead, long live ChipCrypt: a Truecrypt fork with TRESOR and scrypt built in. TRESOR is a technique that keeps the volume key strictly in the CPU registers and not in RAM. This completely prevents RAM freezing and related attacks. A running computer that is locked cannot be trivially decrypted anymore by dumping it's RAM. Scrypt is an advanced password derivation function that makes even trivial passwords very hard to bruteforce. A scrypt derived key is 20000 times harder to crack than the equivalent PBKDF2 derived key of the same password. The TrueCrypt license is not GPL compatible but it allows redistribution in source form as long as the software is not called "TrueCrypt". Who's up for it ?

dchest 12y ago
These two (TRESOR and scrypt) are incompatible, unless you allow for some time period where keys can be extracted. The point of scrypt is to be sequentially memory-hard: it mixes password and salt in a huge amount of RAM and makes it impossible to not use RAM for this operation.
- cornholio 12y ago
  I would say "complementary" not "incompatible". Once you have derived the key you can clear the RAM and keep the key on the CPU chip only. So there's a vulnerability window of a few seconds during which the key (or key related material) is stored in RAM, after which it can no longer be recovered. In sharp contrast with regular TrueCrypt where the master volume key is stored in RAM all the time. It's already standard operating procedure for law enforcement to time raids when the computers are in use and make a dump of the machine RAM.
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    Agreed. Only doing operations involving transferring the key to RAM when the user is present should mitigate it, perhaps with a prominent WARNING dialog showing when memory is vulnerable, and overwriting the memory locations used for the key when done.

Eye_of_Mordor 12y ago

Perhaps TrueCrypt was an NSA scam all along, 'retiring' before they're found out? Worse still, a Russian/Chinese scam!

J_Darnley 12y ago
Why is that worse?
- logicallee 12y ago
  America has rule of law and the NSA had to go rogue to do what it did; once their program was outed it's on all news, everyone is discussing; Americans enjoy real rights. If China or Russia had the same capabilities there would not be any theoretical backlash against this being discovered, since par for the course there is far less freedom. It's not the abstraction that's promised even theoretically. This is the same reason why it's better when Google (with its nominal "do no evil" strategy) turned out to collect wifi data with its street cars, which is not as bad as if Microsoft (with no such policy or mission) had done the same thing.
  - Bustard 12y ago
    LOL! You fucking retard. I much prefer the russians or China have my stuff to the megalomaniac US going around all over thwe world killing people or suing them to bankruptcy.
  - J_Darnley 12y ago
    It might be limited in its actions against Americans but that doesn't make me feel any better. Also the program may have been outed but, it looks like some people are keen to keep it running and possibly make it actually legal
    - logicallee 12y ago
      (Oh, I was just answering your literal question, very narrowly.)

codeulike 12y ago

Are there any decent alternatives to TrueCrypt for Windows that aren't Bitlocker? http://superuser.com/questions/760091/windows-encrypted-virtual-hard-drive-but-not-bitlocker-or-truecrypt http://superuser.com/questions/760091/windows-encrypted-virt...

conductor 12y ago
DiskCryptor (GPLv3) - https://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page https://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page The author seems to be an anonymous Russian-speaking person. Another option is FreeOTFE - http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeotfe.mirror/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeotfe.mirror/ It is compatible with Linux's LUKS and dm-crypt, and it doesn't support system partition encryption.
- awakened 12y ago
  FreeOTFE (which was developed by a woman named Sarah Dean... who by the way also had a large TrueCrypt archive) is no longer developed. She stopped responding to email about a year ago and her domains went away too. http://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/1ciopg/freeotfe_account_suspended/ http://www.reddit.com/r/crypto/comments/1ciopg/freeotfe_acco... The Way Back Machine has an old copy of her FreeOTFE website (freeotfe.org): https://web.archive.org/web/20130531062457/http://freeotfe.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130531062457/http://freeotfe.o...
tim333 12y ago
https://www.deslock.com/ https://www.deslock.com/ Proprietary but I used their free stuff for years
hdivider 12y ago
How about AxCrypt for file encryption? http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ (I phrase this as a question because it'd be great if we could have some HN skepticism on this thing. Personally, I think everything basically checks out: open source, free, there's a name, phone number, address, picture etc.)

sekasi 12y ago

Is this a warrant canary?

mikecb 12y ago
no.
danielweber 12y ago
A warrant is how the government compels you to turn over evidence you have. TrueCrypt does not have any access to its users' keys or data. If we really really stretch, TrueCrypt had server logs that would show who downloaded it that they might be compelled to turn over. This would be an overreaction to such a request.

TempleOS 12y ago

http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Kernel/Compress.html http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Kernel/Compress.html

abcd_f 12y ago

That's LavaBit 2. I've been a long time TC user and if there's the trait it has it's the quality and a high degree of polish. And now looking at the diff and the screenshot of that in-app "Not secure" message, the polish is just not there. It feels like it was something that was slapped together in a rush or by someone who's not an original developer. The SF page alone is a big red flag. If you compare its nearly hysterical tone and ridiculous BitLocker advice to the tone and content of the actual app, they don't add up at all. This leaves us with a handful of discrepancies between the last good state of the project and what's out there now. So it's either someone else's hackjob or it is original and the discrepancies are intentional. Then, factor in the .exe sig match, and it pretty much leaves only the latter option - the original devs made an absurdly non-TC-like release. The question is "why?"

selmnoo 12y ago
This is a pretty confusing case, hard to make much of it, LavaBit 2 is of course a possibility. But while we're making these theories, I wanna sound my wild theory: Considering that: (1) TrueCrypt authors go to great to keep their identities hidden, and (2) it turns out TrueCrypt is not free/open software -- TrueCrypt is actually a project by some spooky 3-letter agency. But anyway, thoughts on alternatives? CiskCryptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiskCryptor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiskCryptor) sounds like a nice one, it's FLOSS. Thoughts on it?
- x1798DE 12y ago
  I really don't think we need to be running to TrueCrypt alternatives quite yet. If Phase II of the audit comes back showing TrueCrypt as insecure, then it's time to start worrying about that, but given that everyone was happy to keep using TrueCrypt up until 1 day ago even though it hasn't been updated in over 2 years, I don't think there's any big rush to switch to something else even if ongoing development stops.
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stefan 12y ago

Any opinion on "Tomb"? http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/ It tries to be a nice LUKS wrapper with container and key files.

gcv 12y ago

Now that this party is over, does anyone know any wrappers for using gpg-zip with some of the degree of convenience of TrueCrypt — at least, for the limited case of keeping directories conveniently encrypted and useable?

neves 12y ago

Maybe it is because Bruce Schneier uses and recomends it: https://www.schneier.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?tag=TrueCrypt https://www.schneier.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?tag=TrueCr...

DanBC 12y ago

I'm not particularly looking forward to a slew of poorly coded alternatives to TC, or to endless discussions about whether or not something actually is FDE.

pppp 12y ago

Here's my theory (step-by-step): 1. Truecrypt is a gigantic pain-in-the-side for US intelligence agencies. 2. Intelligence agencies brainstorm about the best way to deal with the situation. 3. Taking over and tampering with the current code is deemed unrealistic. The user base of Truecrypt is very sophisticated and even minor changes to the source code would be scrutinized. 4. "How can be get people to stop using Truecrypt?" "We can discredit the project - get people to voluntarily stop using it because they don't trust it".

DanBC 12y ago
Your (1) partly fails because they'd just toss you in jail until you hand over the key. If they think you're a terrorist that jail might be overseas with no access to lawyers. If they think you're a paedophile they'll just leak that info (and this your life is destroyed). Also, "Truecrypt properly used is a gigantic pain" and although I have nothing to support it I reckon many people use it incorrectly. Has anyone done any research? See "deanonymizing alt.anonymous.messages" for examples of people doing crypto wrong.
- knodi123 12y ago
  Or they could simply use rubber-hose cryptanalysis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis
- dendory 12y ago
  Actually I disagree. The NSA is all about spying. If they can't decrypt what you do without going to you and asking you for the keys (or throwing you in jail) then I would say it -is- a major pain for them. Remember we're talking about an agency who routinely targets one person in the hope to find dirt on others.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    On the other hand, the NSA is all about spying. If they can't encrypt their data and keep it secret, they can never get the upper hand. (The most valuable information is info your enemy doesn't know you know. Information your enemy knows you know is not as powerful)

awakened 12y ago

E4M - Encryption For the Masses is free software that TrueCrypt was based on. It's free to fork as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M

noarchy 12y ago

If the TrueCrypt devs are done with the project, is there anything legally preventing others from restarting development on it? I know the software had an oddball license that wasn't always well-received. My point here being, with the source being available, why do we need to assume that TrueCrypt is history, other than perhaps a lack of people willing to work on it (which I assume could change now that there is an immediate need for some)?

drKarl 12y ago

Would it be feasible to use encrypted docker containers as a cross-platform encrypted container solution?

DigitalJack 12y ago
how would that work on windows? run linux in a vm and share over samba?

jxf 12y ago

My current favorite insane/facetious conspiracy theory on this: "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s ... TrueCrypt is (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s ... (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s TrueCrypt is (n) (s) (a)

ToastyMallows 12y ago
Obligatory Half-Life 3 is confirmed, 9/11 was an inside job, etc. etc.
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  Yeah seriously, take of your tin-foil hat, why would the NSA be interested in an encryption product? Oh, wait, it's entirely feasible.
verytrivial 12y ago
Well the very next sentence continues "This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt" which could easily be read as a prepared response to the person brandishing the NSL who is now annoyed that the authors have suddenly decided that right NOW is an 'entirely natural' time to end the project.
ParkerK 12y ago
Another interesting thing is that in the diff for 7.1a and 7.2 the author changed U.S. to United States several times. Some people think this is to draw attention to it being related to the US government
- danielweber 12y ago
  But other people point out that Visual Studio changed its default name for America from the former to the latter.
sliverstorm 12y ago
I love this game! "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." "WARNING: Using True(C)rypt (i)s not secure (a)s ..." (C) (i) (a) Again! "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as ..." "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt i(s) n(o)t (s)ecure as ..." (s) (o) (s)

lurkinggrue 12y ago

Lets just fork the sucker and call it a day. They developer is anonymous and if he wanted to stop people he would have to reveal his identity and that is not going to happen.

tzs 12y ago

Well, if we are going to speculate, I'll offer a guess: the crowd funded security audit made the developers lose their enthusiasm. I believe I read in another thread that TrueCrypt did not get many donations. I'd be a bit depressed if I worked long and hard on a project that people seemed to appreciate, but not enough to crack open their wallets and toss a few bucks my way, and then some third party comes along and quickly raises $70k to audit my code.

alex_duf 12y ago
That also seems very possible.
krek 12y ago
Yep. And reading the pdf for phase 1 of the audit, worth about $40k, the findings didn't seem very impressive. Specifically the readability portion where they give a critique of naming conventions in the code. I could see the developers figuring for that money they could've done a lot more good with it.
e40 12y ago
I believe I read in another thread that TrueCrypt did not get many donations Given the anonymity of the developer(s), how would anyone know this? However, the downside of being anonymous is that it makes it hard to ask for donations (in places other than your website). If, and it's a big if, the reason for them throwing in the towel like this, was compensation, I think it would have been handled a lot of other ways. My money is on an NSL and this was their way of telling us about it.

seyfarth 12y ago

Is there any reason this cannot just be forked?

ixwt 12y ago
The license.

zvrba 12y ago

I can't think of a reason why they'd remove sources for earlier versions from SF. I mean, in this day and age somebody is going to upload them again to the internet.

skolor 12y ago
Considering the licensing, its likely that the developers wanted to keep development to themselves, and never turn it over to someone else. If the ragequit theory is correct, its fairly reasonable for them to remove the previous versions to make a fork slightly more difficult, especially since it would be an illegitimate fork.
- zvrba 12y ago
  It doesn't add up. You can't (easily) enforce licensing while remaining anonymous, so why bother with removing the earlier versions? If ragequitting, why bother with making a new release instead of just removing _everything_ and changing the webpage? (Presumably, you already have a copy of the SW if you have encrypted volumes.) Also, note "you _should_ migrate data". Could this imply that cold storage is not secure?
  - skolor 12y ago
    The kind of person I can see maintaining Truecrypt for a decade I can also see making this decision. They're upset and are completely done with the project. They take down all the old versions, knowing that the licensing means they're largely useless for purposes of forking (unless you want to violate the licensing, which causes questions to the validity of the fork). Despite their frustration with the project, they still deeply care about crypto and keeping their users secure, so they publish some brief recommendations on alternatives, and release a read-only version of their software to support it. There are any number of possible vulnerabilities that could exist. Its definitely a plausible possibility. I could fairly easily believe that they were contacted by a researcher who was about to publish a major AES flaw, or one of the other algorithms in use. There's a number of relatively plausible theories. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out for 20 years what the actual reason for this was, when the developer is on their deathbed.

stordoff 12y ago

Reading through the posted diff, a couple of things stood out to me. 1. The release date string went from "February 7, 2012" in 7.1a to "5/2014" in 7.2 . Might be nothing, but it made me wonder if someone other than the orignal author changed it due to the date style change - I'd've expected it to be changed to "February 2014". I also wonder why no specific day was given - makes me wonder if the release was automated and the author didn't know exactly when it would happen (possibly a dead man's switch triggered it?). Again, could be nothing. 2. Pretty much every reference to truecrypt.org has been removed - even the licence now states "Your Product [...] must not present any Internet address containing the domain name truecrypt" (instead of truecrypt.org), and there is no requirement to link to it anymore. It might just be a change in licencing stance to encourage forks, or, if the release was made under duress (NSL/threats/blackmail etc.), it might be a way to try and signal that truecrypt.org can no longer be trusted. Edit: Something is bugging me about this line on the site: "The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP." IT might just how the author writes, but my reaction on reading "was ended" was that something external forced it to stop rather than it being a choice. Also, why mention XP's EOL? The message doesn't say support for TC stopped _because_ of EOL, just after, and I can't think why the end of XP support would effect TC greatly.

23jimbo 12y ago

Was not one of the selling points of truecrypt its ability to provide 'plausable deniability'? That is not so common in other crypto-products.