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Fri, 14 Nov 2008

/Linux/encryption: Truecrypt For the Truly Paranoid

Several days later I am still very pleased with the operation of my enrypted directory. So far zero inconvenience, and no noticable overhead / slowing of system response. I am sure there may be unintended consequences, like file availability for my external backuppc server or during SSH sessions, but I have not yet investigated.....

I just bumped into another encryption solution called Truecrypt[1], where they provide the rather astonishing capability of having a hidden operating system whose existence cannot be proved. Apparently this works by installing a decoy operating system and an "outer" truecrypt-encrypted volume. Then within this outer volume, installing an "inner" truecrypt-encrypted volume, which because it is inside the outer one, will always appear as just random data (until decrypted). And they have set it up so there is no way for the existence of the inner volume and its operating system to be detected. Really, really clever.

In other words, if someone is trying to extort your passwords, you need merely give them the passwords for your decoy OS and outer volume. The only headache / overhead I can really see (aside from needing to remember two passwords, for decoy and hidden OS) is that one actually needs to use the decoy OS a fair bit, in order to plausibly claim that it is your *only* OS and not lead a clever interrogator think that maybe there is more then meets the eye on your hard drive.

Really, really clever. But I am not seeing any packages in the Debian archive, apparently there are licence issues....

[1] http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=hidden-operating-system

posted at: 06:47 | path: /Linux/encryption | permanent link to this entry

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Fri, 14 Nov 2008