On-the-fly drive encryption, with partition masking and hiding. I've been looking at installing it because I'm turning into a security freak. Any experiences?
Do you use TrueCrypt?
- Thread starter papajohn56
- Start date
I've been using it a while and I like it. Before you use it, make sure you go through the whole manual and know exactly what you want to do. So far, I've never had a problem losing a drive.
There are a number of different methods you can use; sometimes I'll take a junk file and put it in with some driver files and use that either as a hidden volume or keyfile. If you pay attention to the filesizes, it's pretty easy to make it blend in with the others.
There's also options to create encrypted partitions and/or OS partitions but if that's not enough, you can create another hidden partition inside the encrypted system partition to hold another OS, so that if you are forced to give up the password for the first one, they are only gonna have access to the decoy OS and if you know what you're doing, they will never know about the real one.
I'm gonna try that next, soon as I get around to clearing off enough space on these drives.
There are a number of different methods you can use; sometimes I'll take a junk file and put it in with some driver files and use that either as a hidden volume or keyfile. If you pay attention to the filesizes, it's pretty easy to make it blend in with the others.
There's also options to create encrypted partitions and/or OS partitions but if that's not enough, you can create another hidden partition inside the encrypted system partition to hold another OS, so that if you are forced to give up the password for the first one, they are only gonna have access to the decoy OS and if you know what you're doing, they will never know about the real one.
I'm gonna try that next, soon as I get around to clearing off enough space on these drives.
Yep. Must-have if you're on a laptop. What if someone steals your laptop or you forget your laptop somewhere? With TC most of your data will be worthless to any thief / person that finds your laptop unless they want to spend years encrypting it.
Plus I can copy over all my stuff within minutes by just copying the container over to my laptop's hd before I leave on a biz trip.
Plus I can copy over all my stuff within minutes by just copying the container over to my laptop's hd before I leave on a biz trip.
I really wish there was a drive encryption option for mac that supports sleep mode. I never turn my laptop off its always sleeping while traveling and if its stolen then they none of the encryptions work anymore.
Sort of, except FileVault only encrypts the home directory into a single encrypted file, which is unlocked at the time of being logged in. (or something like that). Where as TrueCrypt is a full-drive encryption.
Also not sure how accurate this is because its dated 2008:
Step 1: The test image - Images: How to bypass FileVault, BitLocker security - CNET News
Yep.
I use my laptop as my main machine, so it means everything to me. I have an encrypted disk w/ TC custom bootloader. I have a VirtualBox LinuxMint image stored on an encrypted USB drive, so when I am really nutty, I don't leave traces on my own encrypted shit.
I also have an encrypted USB thumb drive, which I use for secure file transfer, swap, and a LiveCD boot environment.
I also have my BIOS locked down.
I've become really paranoid as of late, with all of the talk about privacy going up in flames, and all of the other bullshit that goes on (border seizures of laptops, etc)
When I travel, I shut the laptop down, I never "sleep" or hibernate anymore.
TC is totally worth it. You really do have to read the manual, as another user suggested. But once you get it all figured out, it's awesome.
Just make sure you have a damn strong password
I use my laptop as my main machine, so it means everything to me. I have an encrypted disk w/ TC custom bootloader. I have a VirtualBox LinuxMint image stored on an encrypted USB drive, so when I am really nutty, I don't leave traces on my own encrypted shit.
I also have an encrypted USB thumb drive, which I use for secure file transfer, swap, and a LiveCD boot environment.
I also have my BIOS locked down.
I've become really paranoid as of late, with all of the talk about privacy going up in flames, and all of the other bullshit that goes on (border seizures of laptops, etc)
When I travel, I shut the laptop down, I never "sleep" or hibernate anymore.
TC is totally worth it. You really do have to read the manual, as another user suggested. But once you get it all figured out, it's awesome.
Just make sure you have a damn strong password
I like the hidden volumn option they had since version 6.0 (well for OSX anyways), allows you to open the main volume with your normal password (especially if for some reason you are legally compelled to give up your password for an encrypted volume), but a hidden volume within it will remain hidden and will only mount if you use the hidden volume's password instead.
(Though seeing "Outer" as a type in TrueCrypt once mounted seems to be a give-away that you got something else on there)
(Though seeing "Outer" as a type in TrueCrypt once mounted seems to be a give-away that you got something else on there)
Just make sure you have a damn strong password
Making sure to use symbols and such helps too (especially if you know how to type any unicode characters)
TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux
File/folder/drive encryption tool with plenty of nice features. Allows for real-time transparent encrypting of drive content, as well as keeping them encrypted (ie: only decrypts in memory as you access the files). You can apparently also encrypt an entire bootable drive with TC's bootloader.
Exactly... I am curious as to people's reasons for using encryption on their hard drive.
Are you just trying to give the customs guy a hard time when decrypting your files or what?
If there ever comes a point where somebody (like a government) wants/needs to know what's on there, they'll do so.
I guess it's a good idea not to leave your login info lying around on your computer in an unencrpyted format... but it's not a good idea to leave your login info lying around anywhere period.
What benefits do you hope to reap from encrypting your files?
Very good point.
So is this the sole purpose of encryption as far as webmasters are concerned? Just to encrypt our files in the case we accidentally lose our shit someplace??
If you do business with other people its always a good idea to have your customer's information and data that you've been entrusted with secured. Most of it may seem like a minor matter but pretty sure that some of my clients may not want their original sources, or photoshop files, or perhaps even their server/account login details compromised. And while the common thief may not even bother is there any reason to push your luck?
Though I imagine most users on this thread don't really need the full drive encryption and rather just use good strong passwords with their account, but I guess half the idea is you don't know who on here has data worth stealing
If you've set it up right and didn't use your mom's maiden name for the password this isn't getting cracked very quickly.
Especially if you go a tad overboard with a triple crypt and non-default hash. The very nature of it not being able to be cracked for a while (and CPU time is expensive so hope you're not a big fish they wana fry lol), is why some countries actually outlaw this level of encryption capabilities in civilian hands.