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I'll mention my theory of what happened with TrueCrypt here, because it's relevant to a search for alternatives. I believe TrueCrypt was started as a student p

I'll mention my theory of what happened with TrueCrypt here, because it's relevant to a search for alternatives. I believe TrueCrypt was started as a student project, and was no longer worth the effort to the developer(s). For a student or young developer interesting in cryptography, the reward is in the work itself, and in other people using the software. A decade later, though, with less free time, it's much less fun. At that point, a developer could either commercialize their work, or abandon it. TrueCrypt had very little chance of commercial success, since full-disk encryption comes with all new operating systems, so it's been abandoned. My conclusion is that only for-pay (open-source or not) FDE software can be a viable alternative to TrueCrypt, anything else will eventually be abandoned too. Consider that every project mentioned on this page is based on dm-crypt, part of the Linux kernel, which is supported financially by Intel, HP, and so on. That is a viable, long-term solution, and probably the only one. But if we want a diversity of cryptography software, we are going to have to start paying for it.

hippich 12y ago
This all could make sense if license for TC would be open source, like MIT, GPL or AGPL. If he simply do not want work on it - no problem, just give it to people who want to keep it running.
ultramancool 12y ago
I disagree. It's entirely possible to have a good free (as in beer and freedom) full disk encryption tool. In fact, we have several which are in quite wide use today. See: dm-crypt, loop-aes, luks, tcplay, encfs, ecryptfs, etc (okay, some of these aren't FDE tools in and of themselves, but parts of a system which can be used for FDE). Anyone who uses FDE on Linux is surely using one or two of these. It's really just a matter of someone being motivated enough to develop one for Windows. The entire reason for TrueCrypt's popularity over Bitlocker was that it was open source software. All this means is that one developer got sick and tired of it, which is completely understandable, but it can absolutely not be extrapolated to say that all have. DiskCryptor is currently looking like the next big viable alternative for an open source Windows FDE tool. I'm hoping we see some EFI support though, so I can finally get off BIOS mode. In my opinion, the best method is to gather a few skilled Windows driver developers to craft a driver based around existing technology, like FreeOTFE, which supports dm-crypt images. It'll be interesting to see what happens, I certainly think the demand and interest is high enough that we can get some good people on the case. Hopefully some who won't select a ridiculous license.
- eliteraspberrie 12y ago
  There is only one free-as-in-beer FDE project that has survived the last decade (loop-AES), out of dozens. The one other survivor (dm-crypt) is backed by serious money (the Linux Foundation). It's safe to assume the odds won't get better in the next decade. That is, unless we support freely-licensed encryption software, financially, rather than just use it.
  - ultramancool 12y ago
    Nonsense. ecryptfs has been around almost that long even. And regardless, the maintenance for proprietary FDE products is not much better. Many go in and out of cycle, obsolescence is just a part of software, but there's been 1 or more good encryption options available for a long time.
    - eliteraspberrie 12y ago
      Development of eCryptfs was financed by IBM.
      - dustinkirkland 12y ago
        And both current maintainers of eCryptfs work for Canonical.

hippich 12y ago

This all could make sense if license for TC would be open source, like MIT, GPL or AGPL. If he simply do not want work on it - no problem, just give it to people who want to keep it running.

ultramancool 12y ago

I disagree. It's entirely possible to have a good free (as in beer and freedom) full disk encryption tool. In fact, we have several which are in quite wide use today. See: dm-crypt, loop-aes, luks, tcplay, encfs, ecryptfs, etc (okay, some of these aren't FDE tools in and of themselves, but parts of a system which can be used for FDE). Anyone who uses FDE on Linux is surely using one or two of these. It's really just a matter of someone being motivated enough to develop one for Windows. The entire reason for TrueCrypt's popularity over Bitlocker was that it was open source software. All this means is that one developer got sick and tired of it, which is completely understandable, but it can absolutely not be extrapolated to say that all have. DiskCryptor is currently looking like the next big viable alternative for an open source Windows FDE tool. I'm hoping we see some EFI support though, so I can finally get off BIOS mode. In my opinion, the best method is to gather a few skilled Windows driver developers to craft a driver based around existing technology, like FreeOTFE, which supports dm-crypt images. It'll be interesting to see what happens, I certainly think the demand and interest is high enough that we can get some good people on the case. Hopefully some who won't select a ridiculous license.

eliteraspberrie 12y ago
There is only one free-as-in-beer FDE project that has survived the last decade (loop-AES), out of dozens. The one other survivor (dm-crypt) is backed by serious money (the Linux Foundation). It's safe to assume the odds won't get better in the next decade. That is, unless we support freely-licensed encryption software, financially, rather than just use it.
- ultramancool 12y ago
  Nonsense. ecryptfs has been around almost that long even. And regardless, the maintenance for proprietary FDE products is not much better. Many go in and out of cycle, obsolescence is just a part of software, but there's been 1 or more good encryption options available for a long time.
  - eliteraspberrie 12y ago
    Development of eCryptfs was financed by IBM.
    - dustinkirkland 12y ago
      And both current maintainers of eCryptfs work for Canonical.