In this digital age, security has become a widely discussed topic. It is increasingly important to protect not only people and computers but every bit of information that we collect or encounter. So instead of bringing you a program for anti-virus or anti-spyware protection, I’ll be taking a different angle in this week’s Freeware Frenzy. I will discuss TrueCrypt v4.2; a freeware solution to protect your sensitive information–and protect it well.
When you start the installation, every option is listed on one setup screen. By installing the program, you agree to all the licenses listed in the upper half of the setup window. Because TrueCrypt uses so many different encryption methods, each one’s license is displayed. Using checkboxes, choose to install for all users, add icons to the start menu or desktop, associate the ".tc" extension with TrueCrypt and to create a System Restore point. All of these are checked by default. Installation itself, including the restore point, took just seconds. While it is preferred to do a full installation on your personal machine, keep in mind that running the executable file directly from the "Setup Files" folder, you can use TrueCrypt in Traveler Mode. This way you can use TC via a USB key on a public computer in perhaps a library or school.
First using TrueCrypt can seem a bit daunting; there is no "Click here to start" wizard. So I first took a look at the User’s Guide, an imposingly long PDF document. Luckily the first 20 pages are dedicated to a beginner’s tutorial. The tutorial does an excellent job walking you though the process of creating, mounting and using a TrueCrypt Volume. You’ll be ready in only two minutes.
So what does TrueCrypt do? It first creates a file, called a Volume, of any size you wish, at any location on the computer that you wish. To Windows and anyone else who comes across the file, it will appear as whatever you named it in the wizard, with no extension. Even a right click and Properties will only show the name and size. I created my volume as 100MB. But what good is a seemingly useless file? It is actually a container for any files you wish to encrypt and protect. It only appears to have a size, in this case 100MB, because it is full of random data. To use it effectively, you first have to "mount" the file. This means that it is associated with a drive letter, just as your hard drive is "C" and your floppy drive is "A". By doing this, Windows sees the volume you created as another storage device and you can freely move and copy files to and from the "drive" volume. To mount the drive, you’ll need to provide the password that you gave during the wizard. TrueCrypt recommends at least a 20 digit password using letters, numbers and symbols. This can be tough to create, so check out www.safepasswd.com to get one.
But when does the encryption happen? The answer is on the fly. As you copy a file to the encrypted volume, TrueCrypt encrypts the file. Luckily for us, this process is surprisingly fast, and was not noticeable compared to my everyday file movements. So now that we know how to use TrueCrypt, let’s look briefly at how it works.
TrueCrypt uses a number of encryption methods which you may have heard of before: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), Blowfish, CAST5, Serpent, Triple DES, Twofish and combinations of each. Each of these algorithms are ways to scramble the data so that if anyone found the information, it would appear as gibberish. But no one wants a file of only gibberish, there has to be a way to retrieve the original information, or decrypt it. The solution is called a key.
To understand the concept, let’s use a very simple encryption method. Say I wanted to hide the message "I work for PCMech" to everyone but a certain person. So I choose an algorithm, in this case a very simple one, of shifting each letter down one, so that the message becomes: "J XPSL GPS QDNFDI". So to anyone else these appear to be a useless jumble of letters. But by telling my friend that my key was "Shift 1", he knows to shift backwards one letter to find the message. You may be thinking that this is an easy code and anyone could crack it in seconds. True, which is why various mathematicians have created very long, complex keys that are very difficult to break, and impossible by human brainpower alone. The methods in TrueCrypt use keys ranging from 128 bits to 448 bits. This means they have at least 2128 combinations, which results in a number that is 39 digits long! Imagine trying to figure them all out. It would take quite a bit of time to be sure. How each of these algorithms scramble the data is very complex, but makes for some interesting reading in the User’s Guide.
TrueCrypt includes plenty of other options for creating hidden volumes (files hidden within other files), encrypting entire drives, creating key files (further protection) and even advice on passwords and plausible deniability. Some of the advanced features seem to come straight from the spy movies, but TrueCrypt is useful even for non secret agents. It can be very useful to store sensitive information such as bank records, or business personnel files. Check it out at www.truecrypt.org
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