TrueCrypt 5 - Now with System Encryption

sra

In the latest episode of Security Now security expert Steve Gibson basically raves about it.

What's interesting is that he did quite a few tests on it and found that his system worked faster with TrueCrypt,

Which is very strange

superscaper

sra wrote: »

In the latest episode of Security Now security expert Steve Gibson basically raves about it.

What's interesting is that he did quite a few tests on it and found that his system worked faster with TrueCrypt,

Which is very strange

Those guys always rave about Truecrypt :rotfl: (I think last time i listened it was a link again posted by yourself). Deservedly so though as it does seem to be THE perfect example of what's so good about open source.

sra

superscaper wrote: »

Those guys always rave about Truecrypt :rotfl: (I think last time i listened it was a link again posted by yourself). Deservedly so though as it does seem to be THE perfect example of what's so good about open source.

Probably was posted by me.

He actually recommended a different (Closed source) one a few weeks before because it had support for hibernation, but immediately changed his mind when he had time to give TrueCrypt 5 a proper test.

Bob63

I just wish the Truecrypt guys would complete their feature set. e.g. Mac and Linux are FAT32 only. Getting the new version to work in command line only mode on a Linux server is really difficult (though possible) but unfortunately it doesn't support disk creation in command line. As the software is free though I can't !!!!! too much!

Setting all that aside Truecrypt is a superb piece of software and I have recommended it to a lot of people. I reserve judgement on whole system encryption until I have had the chance to play with it, but it sounds good in theory.

Mike

Hazzanet

Just took the plunge and encrypted my Laptop's hard drive. The process took about 2 hours for the 40gb drive - it forces you to create a "Rescue CD" reboots to perform some tests and then grinds away.

Upon booting, you get a black screen where you tap in the password and then Windows boots up.

I've found that the initial boot is much slower, however once everything's loaded up there's not much difference (if any) that I can see in performance.

I'm pleasantly surprised that it worked... especially since Diskkeeper started up halfway through the encryption process.

Aiadi

John_Gray wrote: »

Thanks for the info! Unfortunately they don't seem to have done anything about:Is there a way round this, does anyone know?

Yes confirmation that it works absolutely flawlessly with no detrimental effects on system speed. In answer to John's question, Yes there is a way round if you don't have admin privilages provided the TC container is formatted in FAT32. I use:
TC Explorer (one other wonder from the world of open source).

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/files/TCExplorer.aspx

and

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcexplorer

Hope this helps.

epninety

The truly paranoid may like to review some recent research from Princeton re data security... http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/

For the rest of us, the latest version of TrueCrypt seems excellent - encrypted my laptop with no problems at all. I will still keep various projects in their own encypted "drives", but mainly because it's easy to keep track of sizes and backup to single dvds or cds as required.

superscaper

epninety wrote: »

The truly paranoid may like to review some recent research from Princeton re data security... http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/

Although it does seem to ignore the cache wiping features of Truecrypt and the precaution methods described in TC's user guide.

wolfman

cheesy.mike wrote: »

I just wish the Truecrypt guys would complete their feature set. e.g. Mac and Linux are FAT32 only. Getting the new version to work in command line only mode on a Linux server is really difficult (though possible) but unfortunately it doesn't support disk creation in command line. As the software is free though I can't !!!!! too much!

It's not that hard to use via command line, just write a one line script and get it to execute in a terminal window. I've been doing so since v4. It auto mounts my partition each time.

They've also added a GUI to it for Linux which I don't think was in v4. It's just like how it is in Windows now regarding mounting and creating volumes etc...

I know what you mean about only having FAT though. That's a bit of a pain.

Another pain is setting it up so that you don't need admin rights to run truecrypt. It is a bit annoying having to enter my admin password and my truecrypt volume password.

I think this works with the new version (you need to log out once running this in a terminal)

sudo groupadd truecrypt &&
sudo usermod -a -G truecrypt yourusername;

Bob63

wolfman wrote: »

It's not that hard to use via command line, just write a one line script and get it to execute in a terminal window. I've been doing so since v4. It auto mounts my partition each time.

Yeah but, no but... Actually the problem is with command line use on a server which doesn't have a graphical display. If you try to run the command (with the -t option) it fails. The solution is to add the core x-windows and gtk core & dev packages before the command line will run. None of this is documented on the Truecrypt website.

As for whole system encryption - this is already possible in other operating systems such as Ubuntu without adding Truecrypt.

I don't use Truecrypt on my Mac due to the FAT32 restriction. Instead I use the native encrypted disk container facility in Leopard.

Mike