TrueCrypt 5.0 Released, Now Encrypts Entire Drive

A funny little man writes "The popular open source privacy tool, TrueCrypt, has just received a major update. The most exciting new feature provides the ability to encrypt an entire drive, prompting the user for a password during boot up; this makes TrueCrypt the perfect tool for non-technical laptop users (the kind who are likely to lose all of that sensitive customer data). The Linux version receives a GUI and independence from the kernel internals, and a Mac version is at last available too."

The final excuse.

That removes the last excuse people have for not encrypting everything..."It is too complicated". Total encryption with a password at bootup...couldn't be simpler.

Re:The final excuse.

Nope, the last excuse for people is "What's encryption?"

Re:The final excuse.

No. Encryption imparts serious performance penalties. Normally, things like DMA allow you to transfer data directly from your disk to your RAM, another disk, or another device. With encryption, every bit must pass through the CPU to do crypto on it. It some cases, that is a very noticeable delay. At our company, that delay was too long for some purposes, so I had them use DriveLock instead, which has no performance penalty.

Re:The final excuse.

All I have to say is this [technocrat.net].

DriveLock: Full Discosure Required

It is well known that DriveLock can be broken. It is also well-known that breaking it is beyond the capability of 99.9% of laptop thieves. This is a fair risk/reward trade-off for all but the most sensitive data.

I don't think it's well-known at all. DriveLock certainly doesn't say so on their web page. Every DriveLock user should be presented with, at a minimum, a click-through message stating that there are well-known methods of defeating DriveLock that are more practical than those required to defeat strong encryption, and that the methods used by DriveLock are only designed to prevent your data from being disclosed in the event of a casual theft aimed at your hardware, and not at your data. Not buried deep in the EULA, either.

As referenced in another reply, http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/9/15796 [technocrat.net]this user was obviously not aware that DriveLock can be very easily bypassed if the persons taking your hardware have access to a clean-room facility.

Lastly, your definition of sensitive data might be different than mine. Without full disclosure, how can I be expected to make an informed decision about the strength of protection required?

a pity the British government won't use it

It's not by Microsoft. Plus they don't have much data left to lose.

How to DDoS your favorite open source project.

Step 1: Post on Slashdot
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

One thing annoys me:

They have to option to convert boot drives to encrypted drives... even while the system is running.
Thats nice.

But how about converting non-boot drives?
Doesnt seem to be possible.

Not everybody starts with a blank sheet, or has double the needed capacity to empty first one HD and then another...

Re:One thing annoys me:

That doesn't seem so important to me.

If you want something encrypted, you put it on a truecrypt drive; you can move it from the original drive to the truecrypt drive, then juggle the drive letters if you use windows, the mount points otherwise. The only thing that can't get this treatment is the boot drive, therefore (uniquely) you have an absolute need for a way to encrypt that while it is running.

What about wake up?

I almost never turn off my laptop, I just close the lid. Will it ask me for a password when it wakes up again?

Re:What about wake up?

In Windows at least (not sure with the other versions), you can set it to dismount mounted volumes whenever certain ACPI events (lid closing, suspend or hibernate etc.) happen.

This forces you to re-enter your password to access the volume.

Of course, you should have an option in your OS to ask you for your login password whenever you close and then open your lid as well.

I will always encrypt

Being in the US, I have become so paranoid now that I encrypt everything with TrueCrypt. Whether it's MP3's, DVDs or pr0n or just simply my web browser cache, it all goes into the encrypted file. Long hard password and keyfiles, and then I also use hidden volumes.

And one big big big reason I use encryption: Usenet. I often use NewsBin to indiscriminately download all the binaries in a given group. I think this is very dangerous. And many times you get some very illegal junk you just don't want lying around -- but I can't get to it for several days to manually filter through it. ISPs get the benefit of being an ISP and not having to filter their caches for content; I do not get that same benefit. If I get caught with something I shouldn't have, it's jail time.

So if it comes up that I had inadvertently downloaded some kiddie pr0n through Usenet newsgroup (which is often mixed in with legitimate stuff), and my machine gets searched, I want some protection. And both: the things I downloaded and the things I have deleted simply CAN NOT be found.

Recovery CD

I'm not sure whether I like the idea of encrypting my entire disk. I don't really like the idea of not being able to boot a live CD to fix something should the need arise. Unless I'm misunderstanding the features, it won't be possible.

I know it doesn't happen often, but there is not anyone here that hasn't at least once screwed up something on his system and needed to boot a livecd to fix a configuration file. With total disk encryption, what do you do? You're boned, as far as I can see and I don't think that I really like the idea.

As I'm writing this, the thought pops into my head that "you can probably just enter your passphrase from the live environment while trying to mount the filesystem". Is this how things actually work? It's a genuine question and I'd appreciate not being modded down for asking it. Of course someone probably will.

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

It is also, of course, impossible that it encrypts the *entire* disk. It may encrypt all the partitions your running system uses, but unless your BIOS has encryption support (which it doesn't), you can't have an encrypted boot partition.

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

unless your BIOS has encryption support (which it doesn't), you can't have an encrypted boot partition.

Of course you can. You just can't have an encrypted MBR... unless you boot from a floppy or a USB drive you keep on your person, or something like that. Note that bios limitations can also be circumvented with linuxbios ;)

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

Yes, they can recover key and encryption algorithms from the unencrypted boot sector. But if they can crack you simply by knowing the unencryption program, you're boned anyways. What they *can't* recover, assuming that your encryption vendor hasn't screwed up, is your key. And without that, they can't read your encrypted partitions. If they've done it right, it's secure. Somebody in possession of your laptop but without your passphrase cannot read the disk, no matter what he does, except for the boot partition, and there won't be any useful data there. I don't use Truecrypt and haven't researched them, so I can't guarantee that they did it right (look at WEP, where they managed to botch the encryption for a major standard, resulting in it having to be replaced by WPA). I believe every laptop should be "whole disk" encrypted--it's just too easy for a laptop to disappear. I run debian on my laptop, so I used cryptmount to encrypt my disk. If you're not encrypting your laptop's disk, you definitely should be. A brief glance over some recent news stories should tell you why.

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

Hi, I read the site yesterday (from Firehose), and I think I can say one thing or two.

TrueCrypt does a good job of encryption, it's not a trivial level. It uses strong algorithms, and you can choose from 5 or 6 different algorithms. It doesn't store your password anywhere in the disk, when you type the password, it tries to decrypt the header, and if it makes sense (I guess if checksums match) then it knows it's the right password and it goes on, otherwise not. It uses basically the XEX (almost sure that's the name... I don't really know what it is, this is what I remember from the site) schema, but XEX uses only one key for two purposes, and TrueCrypt uses two different keys for these two purposes.

The whole-disk encryption (the correct term is partition encryption) seems to work well, at least from the documentation, I didn't try it (yet). It includes a boot sector that does the part of asking the password during boot and decrypting the partition. The boot sector is obviously encrypted, and I suppose it also stores some unencrypted data to implement the boot code (I don't believe it can be done in 512 bytes only), but after you boot the OS, everything it sees is encrypted, so it will protect even temporary files or logs created by the OS on that drive. Even if it doesn't encrypt 100% of the data (boot sector, boot code), it encrypts everything that you should encrypt. What it doesn't encrypt is not secret in any way.

I tried previous versions and I liked it, it is really a great product, and if 5.0 does everything they say it does, I guess it's really worth it. Whole-disk encryption is no longer missing from this excellent software, many businesses need it for laptops (just see how many information theft happened last year due to lost laptops). I believe TrueCrypt is going mainstream now.

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

Oh, I forgot to mention. According to their website, TrueCrypt can encrypt the boot partition even after the OS is installed, even with Windows.

Basically, you install it, then you ask it to encrypt the whole disk. It will install the boot code to ask the password and decrypt the partition before loading the OS, and then it will start encrypting your partition in the background, you may continue using the OS. You may even reboot the machine, it will boot correctly and continue encrypting from where it stopped. If it really works as they say it does, this version is indeed amazing.

Re:Independence from Kernel Internals?

I would like to encrypt my entire laptop drive, but I'm not going through all the trouble if its just another easy layer to break through. Any Truecrypt experts out there?

I am not a TrueCrypt expert, but I follow the discoveries of the crypto community. It seems TrueCrypt is highly respected. While it cannot defeat a (hardare in this case) keylogger, the crypto used seems to be strong crypto implemented according to current standards. Not a snake-oil product with home-rolled ciphers or "passwordless" security or such nonsense. At the moment, nobody admits being able to breaking it and I am not aware of instances that indicate it has been broken. And, other than many other products, it is widely used. Personally I would say it is on a level with PGP/GnuPG/dm-crypt/LUKS with regard to security level offered.

Re:if truecrypt.org is still down

IMPORTANT: Official TrueCrypt distribution packages can be downloaded only from www.truecrypt.org (above, select 'Project' > 'Web Site')

You Fail It.

Re:if truecrypt.org is still down

5.0

February 5, 2008

New features:

*

Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). For more information, see the chapter System Encryption in the documentation. (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
*

Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows)
*

Mac OS X version
*

Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt
*

XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see the section Modes of Operation in the documentation).

Note: New volumes created by this version of TrueCrypt can be encrypted only in XTS mode. However, volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can still be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt.
*

SHA-512 hash algorithm (replacing SHA-1, which is no longer available when creating new volumes).

Note: To re-encrypt the header of an existing volume with a header key derived using HMAC-SHA-512 (PRF), select 'Volumes' > 'Set Header Key Derivation Algorithm'.

Improvements, bug fixes, and security enhancements:

*

The Linux version of TrueCrypt has been redesigned so that it will no longer be affected by changes to the Linux kernel (kernel upgrades/updates).
* Many other minor improvements, bug fixes, and security enhancements. (Windows and Linux)

If you are using an older version of TrueCrypt, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade to this version.

4.3a.......

==============
System Encryption

TrueCrypt can on-the-fly encrypt a system partition or entire system drive, i.e. a partition or drive where Windows is installed and from which it boots (a TrueCrypt-encrypted system drive may also contain non-system partitions, which are encrypted as well).

System encryption provides the highest level of security and privacy, because all files, including any temporary files that Windows and applications create on the system partition (typically, without your knowledge or consent), swap files, etc., are permanently encrypted. Windows also records large amounts of potentially sensitive data, such as the names and locations of files you open, applications you run, etc. All such log files and registry entries are always permanently encrypted as well.

System encryption involves pre-boot authentication, which means that anyone who wants to gain access and use the encrypted system, read and write files stored on the system drive, etc., will need to enter the correct password each time before Windows boots (starts). Pre-boot authentication is handled by the TrueCrypt Boot Loader, which resides in the first cylinder of the boot drive.

Note that TrueCrypt can encrypt an existing unencrypted system partition/drive in-place while the operating system is running (while the system is being encrypted, you can use your computer as usual with

Re:Slashdotted - Download Mirror on Filehippo

Here it is [filehippo.com]

Re:Slashdotted

Actually, I've been having trouble accessing the site all day.

I've been looking forward to the Linux GUI since I read about it, checking back, checking back etc.

Then today, suddenly the entire site is virtually inaccessible.

On the actual release, I think it is going to be good. After all, we see a new MacOS version, a Linux GUI and a few other nice little tools which most people might not even notice.

On the actual software, I love TrueCrypt, I use it both in Windows (where it, simply, is so easy to use), and in Linux (command-line, mehs all around, plus you have to go and delete history if you don't want to save the fact that your using it (or perhaps the fact that a specific file/partition is a container)).

The hidden-partition feature is the bees knees, especially for those extra secret documents, just hide them behind some porn, financial data or something else which you access and make changes to regularly (to hide if you are making changes to the hidden volume).

The ability to back-up headers makes this software great for businesses or governments (can restore a password if a user loses it), and this new encrypt the entire system thing, simply swell (though it doesn't work on Linux/MacOS I don't think).

Anyway, as always, check out the Wikipedia article for more info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt [wikipedia.org]

Re:Slashdotted

The site is sooo slooow. Mirror please! But the update seems great!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/truecrypt/ [sourceforge.net]

Re:Slashdotted

FYI, http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php [truecrypt.org] links to http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/downloads/TrueCrypt%20Setup%205.0.exe [sourceforge.net].