Truecrypt 6.0a

Truecrypt 6.0a

Aniket Kadam, Aug 03, 2008 0906 hrs IST

Truecrypt provides optional choices that can cater to your specific needs giving you rock solid encryption.

Variety of algorithms, Customizable for ease of use or utmost security, Transparent encryption, Supports full system encryption.

Cannot encrypt system drives with logical partitions, No support for non-ASCII passwords, Issues with multi-boot systems.

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Hidden volumes



Hidden volume support is an excellent feature that creates an additional encrypted partition within your existing truecrypt partition, which requires a different password to access. The point is that if you are forced to give up the password to the main volume, since your real secrets are contained within the hidden partition inside it, they are safe. The existence of a hidden volume cannot be proved since it appears to consist of random data just like the rest of the block.

Encrypting the system partition



The program can encrypt the entire windows partition so that accidental hints of secured files will also be hidden away from prying eyes. This way a Truecrypt bootloader is installed and even before windows begins to load, a password is required. Note that since the file system is encrypted, even if someone were to circumvent this by directly accessing the disk, they would gain no information on its contents.

This method requires you to enter a password before your operating system even boots. However, this can cause trouble with multi-boot systems, especially when Linux is involved it can significantly complicate matters.

Rescue Disk

A rescue disk can be created containing the master key and bootloader, so even if they are damaged, compromised or destroyed, they can be restored from the CD. It is strongly recommended that you create a backup disk if you have enabled entire system encryption.

Hidden operating system

This is the coup de gr ce and one of the new defining features of Truecrypt. It creates a clone of your existing system and keeps it separate from your current system. Now, the clone is put deeper into hiding as a hidden partition and the main system, while encrypted, acts as a decoy. There are several precautions you have to take while operating in this mode and while it proves the utmost security, it also needs to be handled with the utmost care to avoid accidental revelation. This is also difficult to manage and is not recommended unless that level of security is required.

Encryption algorithms



All algorithms have an XTS mode of operation, which was approved for cryptographic protection in 2007. It offers better performance than the XEX mode on which it is based.

AES, Serpent and Twofish are the main algorithms available and also various combinations of them working in a cascade. So you can also have AES-Twofish-Serpent, Twofish-Serpent, AES-Twofish and so on. Each of these operates with mutually independent keys so even if the first layer of encryption is broken, the other two are still intact.

The only issue with this is that you expend computational resources to create the additional encryption. So you use more processor power and disk transfer speeds are reduced. This can be particularly detrimental to a laptops battery life when dealing with massive amounts of data.
In addition to everything mentioned, all this functionality is also available through a command line in both windows and Linux.

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hope that it is like utmaco

by p.rajeevan, delhi, on Aug 04, 2008 05:44 PM, Report abuse   Reply

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