TrueCrypt Has Been Potentially Compromised

[droidhacker]

anyone doing anything really important probably isn't running Windows.

LOL, best line ever!

[Danny3]

This is bullshit. Only Microsoft or NSA would recommend you to use BitLocker.

[Vistaus]

You mean "only Microsoft". Some people on here are not even following the news, it seems. NSA was crying at MS' door that they couldn't break through Bitlocker's encryption and they pressured the team leads, but management was adamantly opposed and declined to acquiesce... So it's NSA safe.

Plus the fact that Linux usage would skyrocket *if* MS didn't oppose to the NSA. 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.

[Luke]

Will governments target Linux and dm-crypt next?

We might be next unless we make it damned plain that no attack and no court order directed at any one person can stop Linux native encryption projects like DM-crypt. The Truecrypt team was anonymous, wonder if they got discovered? The Linux developers are not anonymous, so they need to rely on forkability, auditability, and similar deterrents for defense. The GPL helps a lot, because if any word got out of an attempt to shut down development it would be forked in a different country.

If there is ever suspicion that a distro is being coorced to ship crypto binaries built from modified source code, the counter is to distrust all prebuilt binaries and build your own directly from upstream source. If there is suspicion that the devs of any project would submit to a court order to insert a back door, than the source should be audited by someone skilled in detecting underhanded C, and all future changes subjected to fresh auditing. Takes more guts to force changes into human-readable source than into distro-built binaries.

The experience of Sea Shepherd with US courts may be instructive here. In early 2013, Japanese whalers got an injunction from a US court against physical interference in their southern ocean slaughter. In response, the whole Sea Shepherd fleet was shifted to control of Sea Shepherd Australia and Paul Watson stepped down from command. Operations continued from beyond the reach of US courts, and the whalers were again defeated at sea. We need to be able to do the same: stay out of reach of any one nations court orders, gag orders, NSL's etc. That may require hosting projects in mutually antagonistic nations like China and Taiwan, Greece and Turkey. That's what ensures nobody can monitor all Tor exit nodes at once.

We must also prepare for the possiblity of a future in which "unlicensed" crypto becomes illegal to use but used anyway by those like myself that intend to defy such laws and use it to protect other people without regard for legal consequences. Since the code is open, we can take it underground if we have to. It will be a lot safer than homebrewed crypto algorithms like those now reported to be used by some Middle East insurgent groups that quite reasonably don't trust crypto algorithms developed in cultures and countries they know little about and are at war with. Those groups probably would be safer with Twofish or AES but have no way of verifying that fact from their own skills.

Probably all governments regard crypto as a munition, some of us in opposition movements do in fact rely on it like we would on any other munition for defense. I had an encrypted computer defeat police forensics after a 2008 raid on my house. The motive in government in trying to smash open-source crypto is obvious. Wonder if this round of shit means they can't beat Truecrypt and old versions are impenetrable to them? If so, we can't verify that fact unless someone from Truecrypt reaches a safe haven and blows the whistle, daring the US to respond with a drone strike.

Anyway, my experience is that deterrence works. I have always made it plain that any NSL issued against any media organization I am part of will be published if I discover it, and any gag order or other data order publicly defied. I have had no more raids since my encryption beat the last one, and never got another subpeona after I responded to one in a civil suit by going directly to opposing counsel and getting it quashed. That was in a civil suit stemming from an illegal mass arrest of protesters. The 2008 raid probably was launched in the presumption that a subpeona would simply be advance notice to destroy data and hardware. Nobody has dared serve an NSL on any organization I am part of.

[zanny]

If there is ever suspicion that a distro is being coorced to ship crypto binaries built from modified source code, the counter is to distrust all prebuilt binaries and build your own directly from upstream source.

You have to trust your compiler and linker, though. And what do you build those with? I'm unaware of if gcc compiles under clang and / or vice versa, and if you are using a prebuilt binary of either it could insert the same exploits into all compilers you build. At least we can hope that the predecessor to our modern compiler infrastructure had its compiled binaries audited enough to verify it at some point, and that the GCC shipped with every distro follows a faith chain from there of open compilations without injections to the one you're running.

[teeedubb]

Wow, what a sensationalist headline.

[Luke]

Most likely any court order would target crypto binaries directly

You have to trust your compiler and linker, though. And what do you build those with? I'm unaware of if gcc compiles under clang and / or vice versa, and if you are using a prebuilt binary of either it could insert the same exploits into all compilers you build. At least we can hope that the predecessor to our modern compiler infrastructure had its compiled binaries audited enough to verify it at some point, and that the GCC shipped with every distro follows a faith chain from there of open compilations without injections to the one you're running.

Most judges know little about computers. Most cops don't know much about them. The NSA does but is now in disrepute. It is very unlikely that a court order (has to be served on someone who could blow the whistle instead of comply!) would go beyond directly targettting a crypto program. If they were working at the compiler level, we would have a lot more problems, and those cases where they could not get into a corrupt banker's computer after a year of trying or can't get into a kiddie porn machine at all probably would not happen.

In the US, a court order to modify a compiler or linker because it could be used to build a program the courts don't like might not even be legal. The sole exception might be an FBI attempt using intimidation or other illegal tactics to force a distro to serve a modified copy to a single organization or person, after a previous attempt to serve a backdoored crypto binary had failed. That, in turn, is grounds not to use distros based in your own country for building crypto unless the kernel, compiler, and linker all are signed with keys physically out of reach of the courts, spy agencies, or cops in question.

From what we've seen the NSA's preference is to forget the crypto software and intercept computers ordered for delivery to insert malicious BIOS code and/or custom RF bugging chips in keyboards and monitors. You may recall that during the GCHQ attack on the Guardian's offices, specific and seemingly minor chips were targeted for being smashed. Never, ever order computers, keyboards, or monitors for delivery if you use crypto, always buy them randomly off the shelf using cash, never reveal your identity to the seller. For that matter, "janitor attacks" on encrypted laptops in China usually involve the MSS pulling the keyboard to install a hardware keylogger, not trying to install an "evil maid" version of the boot unlocker without even knowing what crypto and what OS they will be attacking.

[rogatti]

No need to run for the hills

Kali Linux Encrypted.
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PenDrive > HD or File or ~

[batGnat]

Why the new version?

If TrueCrypt is in theory that flawed fine. But why would I need to install a new version to decrypt my hard drive? It makes no sense.

[Ericg]

If TrueCrypt is in theory that flawed fine. But why would I need to install a new version to decrypt my hard drive? It makes no sense.

You don't. The new version has had all encryption abilities stripped out. Anyone downloading it now can only Decrypt existing volumes, not make new ones. Presumably to guarantee that existing bugs and vulnerabilities can not be exploited to decrypt new volumes because people assumed it was still secure