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TrueCrypt Website Says To Switch To BitLocker
Several readers sent word that the website for TrueCrypt, the popular disk encryption system, says that development has ended, and Windows users should switch to BitLocker. A notice on the site reads, "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues. ... You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform." It includes a link to a new version of TrueCrypt, 7.2, and provides instructions on how to migrate to BitLocker. Many users are skeptical of a site defacement, and there's been no corroborating post or communication from the maintainers. However, the binaries appear to be signed with the same GPG key that the TrueCrypt Foundation used for previous releases. A source code diff of the two versions has been posted, and the new release appears to simply remove much of what the software was designed to do. It also warns users away from relying on it for security. (The people doing an audit of TrueCrypt had promised a 'big announcement' soon, but that was coincidental.) Security experts are warning to avoid the new version until the situation can be verified.
The best aspect of Truecrypt was the cross-platform compatibility. Being able to open an encrypted drive on any platform was the killer feature.
The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.
It seems to imply that the following thought process: The only purpose of TrueCrypt was in order to support Windows XP, which is no longer supported, so it's not useful for that purpose anymore. Since new operating systems provide their own encryption mechanisms, there is no value in the project, so we're shutting things down.
However, the fact that Windows XP has lost official support does not mean that no one is using Windows XP anymore. Further, one of the valuable aspects of TrueCrypt was that it was open source (meaning the encryption could be independently verified) and cross-platform (meaning a disk encrypted on Mac could be accessed on Windows and vice versa). There's still a lot of potential uses for such a project.
Aside from that, what would possibly be the harm in continuing to provide the source code? If the intention were to deny people binaries as a method of providing a stern warning to potential users, surely they could still provide the source and say, "... but if you know what you're doing well enough to make use of the source code, go ahead and use at your own risk."
Something's wrong here, unless the people maintaining the project are just kind of retarded.
The only things in my TrueCrypt volume are password lists, tax info, etc.
And those are encrypted separately before being put in the Truecrypt volume.
That way if my machine were to be hijacked while I have the volume mounted, I wouldn't lose all the data to nefarious purposes.
And if the device is stolen, there's two layers of security to get through. (Which around here would just be the thieves deleting everything and selling it for Oxy)
it appears it might be compromised.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/i...
Odd, 6 hours ago someone updated the TruCrypt-key.asc files, then 3 hours later posted all the new binaries.
Also odd is whoever posted the new binaries completely yanked all the previous ones, leaving only the new and questionable binary available for download.
Truecrypt was the hardest thing for the NSA and the US government to deal with when seizing storage equipment. It makes sense that they would pressure the project to shutter.
The only purpose of TrueCrypt was in order to support Windows XP, which is no longer supported, so it's not useful for that purpose anymore.
I thought the purpose was to facilitate moving encrypted volumes between different operating systems? Why wouldn't that be useful on Windows 8? How do I mount a Bitlocker volume in Linux?
Ezekiel 23:20
If you're gonna post compromised binaries of TrueCrypt, you generally wouldn't stick them on a page with "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure" in large, bright red text. You'd also expect some kind of statement from the good folks that have been running TrueCrypt for the past decade.
I'll join the chorus of people speculating about them getting a court order they couldn't bring themselves to follow. I would stay far, far away from that latest binary, if I had to guess it contains whatever loophole they were ordered to put in place, hence all the big and bright warnings.
Yep, I'm guessing National Security Letter. The only defence against being forced to hand over signing keys or release versions with flaws and backdoors is to release a final version yourself to discredit any future releases.
The web site looks hastily knocked up, which supports this theory. What I can't quite get my head around is the suggestion to use BitLocker though. I know MS resisted an NSL recently, but that doesn't meant we can trust BitLocker.
Alternatively, maybe the site is by the person behind the NSL, trying to drive people to BitLocker which is already compromised. Since TrueCrypt is being audited maybe they figure they can't insert back doors now.
Either way, this is and extremely worrying development in the crypto wars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So, either they got attacked by someone who was able to both deface the website and *sign code with their GPG key*, or the announcement is genuine.
I think the obvious response is precisely identical in either case...
Um, anyone using Windows should trust Microsoft enough to use their disk encryption. Or they shouldn't be using Windows at all.
As a former softie, all I can say is that i would trust bitlocker over pretty much any solution on the market and here are the reasons why:
1. Microsoft would not knowingly backdoor bitlocker. The NSA pressured the team leads, but management was adamantly opposed and declined to acquiesce.
That was then. Nowadays we have (unconstitutional) things like a National Security Letter where they can force you to put in a backdoor and prohibit you from telling anybody about it under penalty of imprisonment. If you are a little guy like Lavabit you can just go out of business rather than comply but if you are Microsoft you put the backdoor in, telling only the actual people that need to know and informing them they are going to federal PMITA prison if they tell anyone. Unless you were the guy who put the code in you wouldn't know anything about it.
2. Suppose bitlocker was knowingly backdoored, the amount of reputational harm that Microsoft would endure would literally be crippling. Crippling not with the OSS crowd, but enterprise customers. The only loser would be Microsoft and they would not recover.
With only binaries to analyze it is certainly possible that a NSA backdoor could go undetected in bitlocker. Particularly if the backdoor was in the form of an intentional error in an algorithm or a purposefully weak cipher (hello RSA!).
3. There simply not enough people involved in the Truecrypt project at the moment to make it a truly secure solution. This isn't the Linux Kernel. For FDE, I wouldn't trust an FOSS until more audits and testing has been done. The reason is not because of technicalities, but because of legal liability reasons. For an FDE solution I either would want a private company to back the product or I would want a strong and active community truly backing the continuing development of the FOSS.
That said, I'm really hoping the audits come back positive and that development continues.
I hope that development continues as well. More developers would be nice but on a mature project usually there is only low-glory bugfixing going on so a) less developers want to participate because there is less glory and bugfixes are boring and b) there doesn't need to be a lot of developers as there is less workload. Obviously an independant audit would be ideal but that generally means money and somebody has to pay.
Enigma
Nice try, NSA. You're not gonna fool us that easily.
Sent from my PDP-11
Because the short pause it signifies, used verbally, implies "I'm just stating the bloody obvious, but..."
Automatically unlock the drive to boot is a false sense of security, if the computer can boot autonomously then it has the key and therefore so does anyone who steals the whole machine (as opposed to stealing just the drive)... You're no longer relying on the strength of the encryption, but rather the strength of the obfuscation used to hide the key.
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