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How I Compiled TrueCrypt For Windows and Matched the Official Binaries
First time accepted submitter xavier2dc writes "TrueCrypt is a popular software enabling data protection by means of encryption for all categories of users. It is getting even more attention lately following the revelations of the NSA as the authors remain anonymous and no thorough security audit have yet been conducted to prove it is not backdoored in any way. This has led several concerns raised in different places, such as this blog post, this one, this security analysis [PDF], also related on that blog post from which IsTrueCryptAuditedYet? was born. One of the recurring questions is: What if the binaries provided on the website were different than the source code and they included hidden features? To address this issue, I built the software from the official sources in a careful way and was able to match the official binaries. According to my findings, all three recent major versions (v7.1a, v7.0a, v6.3a) exactly match the sources."
I was kinda hoping he'd built some elaborate timing setup to somehow match the exact timestamps and compile speed as the official binaries were built with.
This is still a great analysis though, and the detail provided is a fun read and useful insight into the general mindset and method of how this kind of analysis is done.
Then follow the same steps and compile it yourself. You should come to the same results.
Meh
The compiler (and support stack) is a MS compiler, and MS is already owned by "the man", so as Kernighan demonstrated you still can't trust it.
The disassembler he used is not. So it is (at least theoretically) possible to see if there is a back door. The compiler has a very low-level view of what it is doing. In order to add a back door, it would need to recognize when it is compiling TC. This could be a much more difficult technical problem than what Kernighan did to login, and, if discovered, would be devastating to MS from a PR standpoint.
Do you have the attention span of a gnat? What you ask about is covered In the second sentence of the summary.
I did the exact same thing as in TFA a few days earlier and ended up finding the exact same variations and causes for those variations.
My conclusion was also identical, binaries are indeed coming from the provided sources and can be trusted if no further backdoor is found in the sources themselves.
A cryptographic and coding oriented audit is still much required.
The NSA wages a massive psychological warfare campaign in yearly psy-ops that are budgeted at multiple billions of dollars. Telling people that good, cheap, easy solutions are 'bad' is very very effective. Most people are very easily manipulated, when messages are regularly inserted into their media of choice.
Take one real-life NSA project:
- years ago, the US government passed laws insisting that ALL mobile phones in the USA could be location tracked using ANY viable technology solution. In reality, this means cell tower 'triangulation' methods, where the mobile network providers ensure that ANY phone visible to more than one tower has its precise position noted multiple times per minute. This process does NOT require any form of GPS chip, or for the phone to be 'in use'.
- the law, created for the benefit of the full surveillance activities of the NSA, was described to the sheeple at the time as 'assisting' the authorities in locating 911 callers who, for some reason, couldn't give their current location.
- for several years afterwards, TV dramas and Hollywood films built the location tracking nature of ALL mobile phones into their plots.
- then, the NSA decided that it wanted the American sheeple to FORGET this functionality, and contacted all the major media companies, requesting they no longer reminded viewers that their phones are effectively location tracking bugs. The excuse was that criminals would use their phones without regard for self-incrimination, if TV and films stopped reminded them of the risks represented by mobile phone use.
- now, for almost FIVE YEARS, most TV shows and films, if having characters with mobile phones, specifically state to the audience that phone location tracking is HARD, unlikely, and can only be done under very restricted circumstances. The TV show 'Shameless' (US remake) has a supposedly expert hacker kid STATE that mobile phones cannot be location tracked. The recent movie "The Call" states that only phones with GPS chips can be location tracked.
The NSA is in the game of perceived truths. The NSA has the money and influence to contact ANY mainstream media organisation, and have them carry an NSA designed form of propaganda.
Commercial encryption solutions don't just ALL contain NSA back-doors, they also prohibit the concept of 'plausible deniability'. Truecrypt doesn't tie the concept of password entry to the package that is to be decrypted. You cannot accurately say "this is a truecrypt data block". Commercial encryption products, on the other hand, bind the password process with the encrypted data, denying a user the ability to deny the use of encryption. NSA FUD shills suggest the government do NOT need proof of encryption when demanding passwords, but this is laughable. Legally, you CANNOT demand something you have no proof exists. With the use of Truecrypt, the government needs to collect pre-existing data about its use (say, like the fact the suspect has been witnessed STATING he/she keeps certain encrypted data on the suspect computer). A commercial encryption package, on the other hand, even without back-doors, still works to alert any third party where exactly encryption is active on the computer.
There is one problem with his findings. In order to compile TrueCrypt you have to use Microsoft Visual C++ compiler, which is made by Microsoft from a closed source. If I was the NSA I would but the backdoor in the compiler and it would get injected into the binary whenever TrueCrypt was compiled.
You don't see the flaw their? really?
Did you miss the last sentence?
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