[wellylug] USB stick protection

[Atom Smasher]

On Sun, 29 Mar 2009, Cliff Pratt wrote:

> Atom Smasher wrote:
>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2009, Cliff Pratt wrote:
>>
>>> http://mareichelt.de/pub/texts.cryptoloop.php
>>>
>>> Though I'm not sure that TrueCrypt == truecrypt and whether the flaws
>>> are to be found in later versions of truecrypt > 4.1.
>> ======================
>>
>> first paragraph, last sentence: "Up-to-date versions of dm-crypt (with
>> LUKS) and truecrypt are also ok to use."
>>
>> also: "Unfortunately truecrypt [versions prior to 4.1] is just another 
>> broken device crypto implementation that uses good ciphers in insecure 
>> way. Specially crafted static bit patterns are easily detectable 
>> through that kind of bad crypto. Requirements: (1) used ciphers must 
>> have 128-bit block size and (2) file system where bit patterns are 
>> stored must have 2K or larger soft block size. Many popular linux file 
>> systems meet those requirements."
>>
>> the paper is about 5 years old.
>>
> Yes, but last modified last November.
=================

it's been updated but refers to an implementation error that seems to have 
been fixed in late 2005...

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=version-history

truecrypt 4.1 - November 25, 2005... "To prevent a recently discovered 
attack, which affects plausible deniability, we strongly recommend that 
you move data from your TrueCrypt volume to a new volume created by this 
version. Description of the attack: If a series of certain plaintext 
blocks is written to a mounted volume (i.e., if it is correctly 
encrypted), it is, with a very high probability, possible to distinguish 
the volume from random data. This affects volumes created by all versions 
of TrueCrypt prior to 4.1, except volumes encrypted with AES-Blowfish or 
AES-Blowfish-Serpent."


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