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TrueCrypt 6.0 Released
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 08, 2008 04:36 AM
from the plausible-deniability dept.
from the plausible-deniability dept.
ruphus13 writes "While most of the US was celebrating Independence Day, the true fellow geeks over at TrueCrypt released version 6.0 of TrueCrypt over the long weekend. The new version touts two major upgrades. 'First, TrueCrypt now performs parallel encryption and decryption operations on multi-core systems, giving you a phenomenal speedup if you have more than one processor available. Second, it now has the ability to hide an entire operating system, so even if you're forced to reveal your pre-boot password to an adversary, you can give them one that boots into a plausible decoy operating system, with your hidden operating system remaining completely undetectable.' The software has been released under the 'TrueCrypt License,' which is not OSI approved."
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Your Rights Online: Schneier, UW Team Show Flaw In TrueCrypt Deniability 225 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier and colleagues from the University of Washington have figured out a way to break the deniability of TrueCrypt 5.1a's hidden files. What about the spanking-new TrueCrypt 6? Schneier says that 'The new version will definitely close some of the leakages, but it's unlikely that it closed all of them.' Meanwhile, PC World is reporting that the problems Schneier and colleagues found are bigger than just TrueCrypt. Among their discoveries: Word auto-saves the contents of encrypted files to the unencrypted portions of your disk, and this problem should apply to all non-full disk encryption software. Their research paper will appear at Usenix HotSec '08."
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first (Score:5, Funny)
svefg cbfg
Re:first (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:first (Score:5, Informative)
Replacement cipher.
Translation table:
b o
c p
e r
f s
g t
i v
Parent
More filesystems (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I hope that it now supports more filesystems, because mucking about with FAT on MacOS X didn't appeal to me last time.
Re:More filesystems (Score:5, Informative)
It still only creates FAT file systems, but you can reformat to whatever you want afterwards. I tried it with both HFS+ and ZFS and it seemed to work fine.
Parent
Re:More filesystems (Score:4, Informative)
Or you can create your own filesystem? I don't know how it works on the mac, but on windows & linux truecrypt just creates an encrypted disk which you can format with any filesystem you like. Just create the container file filesystem type 'none' and format it yourself.
Parent
That might betray the presence of a hidden volume (Score:5, Interesting)
- depending upon the file system.
For instance, if you used ext3 then mkfs.ext3 is going to put backup super blocks all over your disk. If you then setup a hidden volume later on, some of those backup super blocks are going to get over written. An attacker - to whom you've been forced to reveal your outer volume password - could easily discover that the backup super blocks aren't the same as the real super block and deduce that you're using a hidden volume that you didn't tell them about. You could, when formating, tell mkfs.ext3 not to use any backup super blocks - but that also might look a bit suspicious. Just food for thought.
Parent
Re:That might betray the presence of a hidden volu (Score:5, Insightful)
Since I didn't understand anything you just said, and I'm a C# Programmer who has Ubuntu installed on a few machines, I highly doubt the $10/hour lunk at the airport is going to notice...
Parent
Re:That might betray the presence of a hidden volu (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:More filesystems (Score:5, Funny)
And mucking about with Reiser[FS] doesn't seem to appeal to anyone right now.
Yeah, but if you're already in trouble, you could make a deal by showing them where you hid the filesystem.
Parent
Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is described in full here [truecrypt.org]:
Full release notes can be found here [truecrypt.org].
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
You should copy the files that you don't mind exposing, to the unencrypted partition of the USB key or a different no crypto USB drive.
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't mind exposing your secrets to a machine you don't have control over (and thus should not trust)? I don't recommend it.
You should copy the files that you don't mind exposing, to the unencrypted partition of the USB key or a different no crypto USB drive.
Obviously his specific use for truecrypt is to protect data in transit, should he lose the USB drive.
I think that's a very common scenario.
Your 'solution' completely negates the value of that use of truecrypt.
Parent
Low powered PC (Score:4, Interesting)
A not very powerfull small factor PC (some subnotebook barely good enough to run Linux - no need for the latest über-UMPC able to withstand Vista), with which to decrypt the content on arrival seems to be the only current solution.
At least, as an over-powerful laptop isn't needed, at least this isn't very expensive.
Also, has TrueCrypt been ported to PDAs ?
A PDA running TrueCrypt and dual SD+USB hybrids cards (Sandisk and OCZ produce such beasts) seems another even cheaper solution.
If the data can't be decrypted on the target machine when plugged with the card's USB connector, then plug it into the SD port of the PDA and decrypt data from there.
Parent
WindowsCE != WindowsXP but Linux: PDA ~PC (Score:5, Informative)
Would this even be necessary? I can install and run Truecrypt off of a USB Thumb drive or an SD card on a Win or Lin based PC.
Yes it's necessary, because currently in Windows there's no way to run TrueCrypt unless you have admin privilege on the target machine.
The original parent wanted to use TrueCrypt to secure data before transporting them (so the loss of the USB key isn't a critical leak) and then being able to retrieve the data from the USB key once arrived at the destination, EVEN if he doesn't have admin access on the machine on which said key is plugged (and thus can't install TrueCrypt from the key).
If you use a Windows PC to install the Win version of Trucrypt, and then plug the SD card into a Win-based PDA, would it not function normally?
No. Won't work. The only thing that "Windows CE" and "Windows XP" have in common is having the word "Windows" appearing in their names. As other have pointed out both don't even run on the same architecture (x86, AMD64 and Itanium for WinXP ; ARM, MIPS and SuperH for WinCE).
So :
- either you run the usual TrueCrypt on a portable device that runs Windows *XP* (or Linux or BSD or Mac) - this was my first suggestion, anything cheap like an Asus EEE PC or an OLPC is OK.
- or you use a PDA running Windows CE (or Palm OS, or Symbian, or RIM) and use a TrueCrypt version that was adapted for the differences and recompiled for the processor.
That was my second suggestion : if there exist a version of TrueCrypt which works on PDA, then the PDA could be used to do the decryption (but stock WinXP software can't run on WinCE).
Linux is an exception : the Linux running on PDAs (Sharp Zaurus, Nokia Maemo, Trolltech GreenPhone, OpenMoko/FIC NeoRunner, etc...) is much closer to the full Linux running on desktop.
Usually the graphic interface is different (often the PDAs don't have X-Windows but use special purpose GUIs) but the system are POSIX compliant and any console software usually run as-is after being simply recompiled from source (because the processors are still different and the binaries are different - but the source is the same for console applications).
So that's the exception to the rule.
Note: That also true for a lot of different Linux enabled appliace (modem/routers, file servers, etc.) - although lots of them have very limited resource which put a hard top at what you can manage to get run.
Also, Apple is touting that their desktops' Mac OS X and the iPhone and iPodTouch's OS X are similarly very related, and some developers (like Epocrates [epocrates.com] who are making medial PDA software) have mentioned that porting their application to the portable OS X was a matter of couple of days.
On the other hand, I haven't heard the iPhone / iPodTouch having a POSIX-compatible console environment (still hearing that the current SDK imposes limits on what can be done), so I don't know if getting a console application to work on those platforms is a simple matter of recompile.
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't mind exposing your secrets to a machine you don't have control over (and thus should not trust)? I don't recommend it.
I'm not the OP, but this is being sillily unreasonable.
For instance, I don't have admin rights on the computer in my office. So maybe I don't want to trust this computer entirely. But if I'm walking back and forth with my USB key most days, the major threat is me leaving the key sitting on the bus seat or something like that, not information being stolen while I'm on the work computer.
It's not like just because you don't control a computer you don't trust it at all, or that just because something is in a TrueCrypt volume it's extremely sensitive.
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
For instance, I don't have admin rights on the computer in my office. So maybe I don't want to trust this computer entirely.
I do have admin rights to my computer at the office, but I don't trust it 100%. Why? Because any network admin in the company also has admin rights on it. And of course it was not installed by me, and runs some of their custom stuff...
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Any other coders have time to update these projects? I know I don't, but it would be a great service to the OSS community if someone could.
Parent
Re:Local admin rights on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
I work as a consultant and often use Truecrypt on my USB key in traveller mode on sites where I work. The top thing on my wishlist is to be able to run/install Truecrypt on a Windows machine without admin rights.
The issue is described in full here [truecrypt.org]:
Full release notes can be found here [truecrypt.org].
You dont need Admin rights with TCexplorer
Ideal for USB key
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/files/TCExplorer.aspx
Parent
Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise users get exposed to "rubberhose cryptography".
Basically if all users even Joe Sixpack get an encrypted partition by default, then people using crypto will be safe - they have plausible deniability.
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but Truecrypt has a defence against that. It is called "hidden volumes". Basically, you create a container, use it for porn or financial records (something that you have a legitimate reason to want to hide, from the wife or identities thieves for example), something that you access often. Then you create a hidden volume that is put at the end of that volume, which to access requires a second password.
There is no way of knowing if that second hidden volume exists unless you have both passwords.
If you access the first volume without both passwords, then you can just wipe over whatever information you have stored in the hidden volume.
Oh yeah, I love TrueCrypt. It's groovy.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Funny)
;) That is to say that you carelessly watch and upload too much porn without both password and you loose all those important TPS reports....
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a clue.
Does Joe Sixpack's computer come with Truecrypt? Does it come with a truecrypt container preinstalled?
The answer is NO.
So if the wrong people find Truecrypt on your computer guess what happens to you. If you say "Nothing" well: "Wrong answer!". They may give up after a few days of giving you the treatment, but it still means you get the treatment.
Whereas if everybody had truecrypt AND an encrypted partition, they could a) try to waterboard everyone, b) wait till they have more evidence.
And that is why I reported this bug/feature request: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/148440 [launchpad.net]
Encryption must appear to be in _use_ by default by all users, then you get safety in numbers. When even your grandma using Ubuntu has a crypto partition, things are better for the people actually using it.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Informative)
Think you totally missed the point.
You put plausible data into the encrypted volume, when they ask for your password you give it up, they access the encrypted volume and see you got porn/financial stuff/what nots you don't want others to see. What they can't see is the fact that there is another volume hidden inside this, which there is no way of knowing unless you got the second password. Waterboarding the person makes no sense since he has already given up the password giving you access to the "entire" volume.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Interesting)
Already a Mr Chris Jones has an issue with my proposal because he seems to think that the UK government would waterboard users in the UK if Ubuntu has a default encrypted partition they might not have a key to.
If Chris Jones is right that the UK Government would do such a thing, then they would be far more likely to waterboard you for voluntarily installing truecrypt, voluntarily creating a encrypted volume (or two) AND not handing over "all" passwords. Even if you don't even have a hidden volume.
If you have a Government willing to mistreat people for using a distro that does what I propose, they would definitely mistreat people who use Truecrypt.
So my proposal makes the most sense.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop being an idiot and read up on it. You can *not* tell. And it certainly does not show up as free space. You can *not* prove OR disprove the existence of another hidden partition. Period. "Trained to look for it", oh please.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, there was a conversation about this last time the subject of TrueCrypt came up. Unfortunately it went mostly unnoticed, because a forensic investigator can tell if a hidden partition is present [slashdot.org], masquerading as free space:
I think you, and many other Slashdotters have 'Reiser Ego' (coined!) You see TrueCrypt as an extremely clever and infallible tool you can use to circumvent the stupidity of courts and the dunder-heads who work in computer forensics. For the most part however, these people are not stupid, and geeks are not able to avoid prosecution via their l33t h4xX0r skills.
I fear big egos will lead many geeks to underestimate their adversaries. Feel free to prove me wrong, of course. :)
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple reason why I had seeks to an area that looks empty, it's because I *used* to have files there before I deleted them, then since I'm savvy enough to use Truecrypt, I ran one of those wipe programs that overwrites it with garbage, hence what you see if you look at the drive forensically, garbage.
I came up with that in the time it took to read your post.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless it has a password that will *securely* wipe the hidden volume when entered, then it only has an illusion of a defence against that which is in reality no more than another example of security by obscurity.
Worse thant that, anyone with half a clue will be working on a clone of the original drive. No point in needlessly potentially damaging evidence. So if your dealing with someone competent, and who has time on their hands to do things right, a secure erase panic password will buy you nothing.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm quite positive that you do have a hidden volume. It's where you're storing all of your terrorist secrets, and unless you reveal the password then this ballpeen hammer has a date with your fingers.
Still don't want to talk? Maybe you just need a little more electricity.
We'll stop when you are able to prove to the nice men who are protecting your country that you _don't_ have a hidden encrypted partition, and then they will let you go.
Parent
Re:Only works if it's default install (Score:5, Funny)
Great!. Now everybody will think I have a hidden partition, because I have she-male porn. Uh I mean, never mind.
Parent
Relevant links (Score:5, Informative)
Project homepage is here: http://www.truecrypt.org/ [truecrypt.org]
Release notes here http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=version-history [truecrypt.org]
(Btw, these links should be in the article, instead of an external (sponsored?) one).
Great - I'll keep my geek-cred (Score:5, Funny)
Great, I can now maintain my geek-cred by hiding the fact that I sometimes have to boot into Windows to run things like a GPS map updater. No more microsoft on the boot menu.
Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad. I often travel between the US and China on business ( I live on the China side ). I've always been careful with sensitive data, but now I'm absolutely fascist. Why? I have no fear of the Chinese government. Besides, I work for a Chinese company. I fear my own country illegally accessing files to which they have absolutely no rights whatsoever.
Honestly. If someone works for the US government, pulls some CEO's laptop at the boarder for "inspection" and gets free access to all the company financials, would they do the right thing? How many semi-intelligent people wouldn't be tempted to start buying stock options or call their best friend with a really good "tip"? Even if they SEC investigated, they would never find the link.
Over the last several years, I've always been treated very respectfully inside China and going to and from. It is in the US, my own country, where I'm treated as if I'm already guilty.
Back to the topic at hand. TrueCrypt is a wonderful product. Everyone should be using it.
Re:Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, what Kool-aid have you been drinking? I've been to China many times too, and love the place, but I'm afraid you're being seriously delusional if you think it's safe to be that blasé around the Chinese authorities. The American search procedures at the US border would indeed be unconstitutional were they conducted in the country, but at least you know up front what the rules are. In China, your rights are vague at best and your recourse to law is minimal. If next time you enter China the border officers did decide they are going to take your laptop away, what could you do about it? Oh, but if they're polite, then that's OK, right?
Fanboyism of China is not helpful to the country and unattractive, so please stop it; it's embarrassing, and even potentially dangerous.
Parent
Re:Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
This absolutely mirrors my own experience. I live in the EU and I travel mostly around the EU and Africa. When I get to the US I'm treated as a convicted criminal and I'm a US citizen. I am routinely hassled and threatened by petty dictators of nano-dictorships. Which I find completely bizarre... Hell the security & customs agents in Zimbabwe are more polite than the ones in Atlanta.
Another thing I find complete asinine is that little form you fill out saying where you are going stay while you are in the US. I've been staying at 1600 Pennsylvania ave. for going on 6 years and no one has so much a blinked.
Parent
One question (Score:5, Funny)
True crypt is fabulous. But is it good enough to hide a body?
Hans
Independence day? (Score:5, Insightful)
While most of the US was celebrating Independence Day, the true fellow geeks over at TrueCrypt released version 6.0 of TrueCrypt over the long weekend.
That might not be just a coincidence.
NSA backdoor? (Score:4, Funny)
It's not a silver bullet but it's good enough... (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep a copy of both on a USB key drive and on an external hard drive which never leave my home. As well as a non-encrypted copy because I'm still wondering what happens to that encrypted file if I happen to have a fucked up cluster on the drive at some point.
The rational for using encryption is not that I am afraid of the local authorities, there is nothing on my computer that would cause me any long lasting trouble, despite the fact that I live and work in a limited freedom area (Middle East), but simply to avoid opportunity theft.
For example I can't recall how many time one of my clients or partner handed me a usb key drive containing all his companies financial statement, bank account number, internal price list with profit margin, internal memo, personal info and the wifey's naked picture so that I could copy them a few documents and then forgot about the keydrive because we kept chatting.
Sometime I too need to get some files from them and I don't want to look like I'm watching them while they dig around my keydrive. I now know that everything a casual observer should not see is encrypted so I don't mind throwing my key drive over the table to someone I don't know.
I don't understand the paranoid people here who believes in plausible deniability, decoy drive and other such thing. I also wonder if the same people only use their computers in safe room with controlled EM environment and bullet proof shade.
I didn't know either that so many people carried state secrets around international airports. To those I will say that if the NSA/FSB/Interpol/MI4/Mossad/Mafia or even the local police wants the content of your drive they will get it. period. It doesn't matter what you do. Unless of course you also work for one of the aforementioned in which case you might have been trained to accept that your life is worth less than the content of said drive.
I have never been subjected to physical or psychological torture (aside from clients and some ex-gf of course) but I am not Jack Bauer and I would "come clean" very quickly. I would give the real password, not the decoy, because I believe consequences would certainly worsen my situation if my interrogators were not convinced.
I am also pretty sure that the simple sentence: "The accused has so far always refused to give his encrypted drive password." would certainly help convincing a jury beyond "reasonable doubt" (In countries where such thing even exists).
Some people here should start to seriously look at themselves and wonder if what they are trying to hide is really worth it or if it's just about mommy not finding their downloadable girlfriend picture collection.
Here's the non-spam link, dickhead (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.truecrypt.org/news.php [truecrypt.org]
Re:OK (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:OK (Score:5, Informative)
So when they get the first password, they continue until they get another or they decide there's no way you could have withstood that much. And when they get your second password, they'll still go on in the hope of a third, unless the data they find would totally fill the disk.
Each time you give up something, they'll assume there may be more until they've kept torturing you for a long time without getting any more information.
Parent
Who said it's torture-proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to worry about it being torture-proof, you're almost certainly dead anyway.
All it needs to be, for most people, is audit-proof.
And for that you need a business case for having it. Porn is probably not a good choice.
Parent
Re:OK (Score:5, Informative)
Even the NSA would have to devote a significant part of their resources. 95^12 is over 500 sextillion combinations. So, say you've got a really really fast CPU that can do 1 billion test decrypts a second (which is unfeasibly fast at the current time). It would take that computer over 17 million years to find the password.
So, let's say that the NSA has a million CPUs at their disposal, it would still take over 17 years to decrypt. So, they'd have to be pretty sure that you have some seriously cool porn on your PC before they start devoting 100,000,000 impossibly fast CPUs to the task of cracking your password in a couple of months.
The Storm Botnet would take centuries to hack a random 12 character password (it would cut down on spam though).
Of course, if you choose 'password' as your password it might not take quite as long.
Parent
Re:Suggestion: Truecrypt LiveCD -Stealth- Install (Score:4, Informative)
This is discussed in the "plausible deniability" section of the TrueCrypt docs.
The recommended solution is to ensure you have a plausible use for the existing installation of TrueCrypt, for example some porn or customer records in a separate container, allowing you to deny the existence of the real container.
This means you do not have to put yourself in a situation where you are denying using TC and one tiny mistake could indicate that you have used TrueCrypt when no visible TC volume is present.
On the other hand, I'm sure most of the bootable Linux LiveCDs will continue to include TrueCrypt.
If you want to do it with Windows, use BartPE as discussed in the TrueCrypt FAQ.
Parent
Re:Breaking volumes (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, if law enforcement "fucked up your volume" as you so nicely put it, they have just destroyed whatever evidence you where trying to hide. So why would anyone using true crypt have a problem with that?
Parent
Re:Breaking volumes (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK, yes, if you fill the decoy volume it will kill your hidden volume.
which makes you wonder how long it'll be until a tool is developed for law enforcement specifically designed to fuck up these volumes.
They can only do that if they've confiscated your laptop *and* acquired your 'decoy' password. At that point, your only concerns are they not getting your data and you being able to deny the data is there in the first place.
Somebody deleting all your sensitive files is not a bad thing to happen at that point.
Parent