Re: Newbie question: How secure is TreuCrypt 6.3a?

Richard Malchik <NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:5u9m365ml1gh1uoho58f9s68ssbmljncak@xxxxxxx:

It obviously protects against neighborhood break-ins, but
is it really secure against all others that may want access
to financial records and writings and the like? Are there
any "back-doors?"

Richard


The short answer is: Yes, Truecrypt is secure (but see my
paranoid PS)

Truecrypt uses secure algorithms and methods and its source
code is available for inspection (although it isn't quite open
source).

You must understand that there are some things that software
encryption, no matter how good, cannot, by its very nature,
protect against, such as hardware keyloggers, video/acoustic
surveillance, evil maid attacks, firewire attacks, etc. And
the internet!
(Truecrypt only protects data "at rest" - if you're running
and online, you're as vulnerable as anyone else to Trojans,
viruses, etc.)

A few good practices:

1) BACK UP everything before encrypting. If you make a
beginner's mistake you don't want to find yourself locked out
of your own data. With encryption, backups are even more
important than for ordinary computing. CONFIRM you can restore
the backup (You'd be amazed how many backups turn out to be
worthless because they won't restore!) Later on when you're
experienced you will make frequent encrypted backups but at
the outset use plain unencrypted ones and keep them for a few
weeks/months at least.

2) Pick a strong password (or passphrase - diceware is also
good). And backup the Truecrypt header (i.e., make a rescue
disk)

3) Whole disk encryption is superior to container encryption
but there are more possibilities to shoot yourself in the foot
until you become experienced. Did I mention you should make a
backup?

4) Oh, and in case I forgot to tell you: Make a backup!

Regards,

PS I (as a certified paranoid :-) have many misgivings about
how trustworthy Truecrypt is and whether it contains
backdoors, etc. The authors are far too secretive for my
taste and I REALLY don't like the way they manage their
forums, purge code from the internet, etc.

But, at least on the face of it, Truecrypt is well done.

You only need to begin worrying about how truustworthy
Truecrypt is re backdoors, etc. if your activities are so
high-profile that you could be a target of major intelligence
agencies (NSA, etc.). Below that, you're bombproof.

.

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