Command Center

This guide will go through installing TrueCrypt encryption software from a terminal in order to install the command line version (in cases were desktop access is unavailable) and as a GUI for users that require a simple working interface.

Installing Command Line Version (from terminal)

Go to download page and download the “Mac OS X/Linux” version

http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2

The required software for building TrueCrypt are listed below:

- GNU Make – GNU C++ Compiler 4.0 or compatible

- pkg-config

- FUSE library and header files (available at http://fuse.sourceforge.net and http://code.google.com/p/macfuse)

- RSA Security Inc. PKCS #11 Cryptographic Token Interface (Cryptoki) 2.20 header files (available at ftp://ftp.rsasecurity.com/pub/pkcs/pkcs-11/v2-20) located in a standard include path or in a directory defined by the environment variable ‘PKCS11_INC’.

Install them using the following:

apt-get install g++ pkg-config libfuse-dev libfuse2 fuse-utils

Make sure the fuse module is added to your kernel and that it is loaded every time your system starts. You can do that by editing the /etc/modules file and appending “fuse” (without quotes) to it. Finally, extract the tar.gz archive.

sudo modprobe fuse

sudo nano /etc/modules

OR

su echo fuse >> /etc/modules

tar xvf TrueCrypt\ 6.1a\ Source.tar.gz

cd truecrypt-6.1a-source/

make NOGUI=1 WXSTATIC=1

In case of a compile error which refers to missing file “pkcs11.h” you can download it manually using:

wget ftp://ftp.rsasecurity.com/pub/pkcs/pkcs-11/v2-20/pkcs11.h

wget ftp://ftp.rsasecurity.com/pub/pkcs/pkcs-11/v2-20/pkcs11f.h

wget ftp://ftp.rsasecurity.com/pub/pkcs/pkcs-11/v2-20/pkcs11t.h

Finally you can copy the executable to /usr/local/bin by:

cp Main/truecrypt /usr/local/bin/

Installing GUI Version

Installing the GUI version is extremely simple. Get/extract/execute the file using:

wget http://www.truecrypt.org/download/truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz

tar xvf truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz

./truecrypt-6.1a-setup-ubuntu-x86

or

wget http://www.truecrypt.org/download/truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x64.tar.gz

tar xvf truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x64.tar.gz

./truecrypt-6.1a-setup-ubuntu-x64

It may happen that you are forced by somebody to reveal the password to an encrypted volume. There are many situations where you cannot refuse to reveal the password (for example, due to extortion). Using a so-called hidden volume allows you to solve such situations without revealing the password to your volume.

The layout of a standard TrueCrypt volume before and after a hidden volume was created within it.

The principle is that a TrueCrypt volume is created within another TrueCrypt volume (within the free space on the volume). Even when the outer volume is mounted, it is impossible to prove whether there is a hidden volume within it or not*, because free space on any TrueCrypt volume is always filled with random data when the volume is created** and no part of the (dismounted) hidden volume can be distinguished from random data. Note that TrueCrypt does not modify the file system (information about free space, etc.) within the outer volume in any way.

The password for the hidden volume must be substantially different from the password for the outer volume. To the outer volume, (before creating the hidden volume within it) you should copy some sensitive-looking files that you actually do NOT want to hide. These files will be there for anyone who would force you to hand over the password. You will reveal only the password for the outer volume, not for the hidden one. Files that really are sensitive will be stored on the hidden volume.

A hidden volume can be mounted the same way as a standard TrueCrypt volume: Click Select File or Select Device to select the outer/host volume (important: make sure the volume is not mounted). Then click Mount, and enter the password for the hidden volume. Whether the hidden or the outer volume will be mounted is determined by the entered password (i.e., when you enter the password for the outer volume, then the outer volume will be mounted; when you enter the password for the hidden volume, the hidden volume will be mounted).

TrueCrypt first attempts to decrypt the standard volume header using the entered password. If it fails, it loads the area of the volume where a hidden volume header can be stored (i.e. the bytes 65536–131071, which contain solely random data when there is no hidden volume within the volume) to RAM and attempts to decrypt it using the entered password. Note that hidden volume headers cannot be identified, as they appear to consist entirely of random data. If the header is successfully decrypted (for information on how TrueCrypt determines that it was successfully decrypted, see the section Encryption Scheme), the information about the size of the hidden volume is retrieved from the decrypted header (which is still stored in RAM), and the hidden volume is mounted (its size also determines its offset).

A hidden volume can be created within any type of TrueCrypt volume, i.e., within a file-hosted volume or partition/device-hosted volume (requires administrator privileges). To create a hidden TrueCrypt volume, click on Create Volume in the main program window and select Create a hidden TrueCrypt volume. The Wizard will provide help and all information necessary to successfully create a hidden TrueCrypt volume.

When creating a hidden volume, it may be very difficult or even impossible for an inexperienced user to set the size of the hidden volume such that the hidden volume does not overwrite data on the outer volume. Therefore, the Volume Creation Wizard automatically scans the cluster bitmap of the outer volume (before the hidden volume is created within it) and determines the maximum possible size of the hidden volume.***

If there are any problems when creating a hidden volume, refer to the chapter Troubleshooting for possible solutions.





Note that it is also possible to create and boot an operating system residing in a hidden volume (see the section Hidden Operating System).

USB flash drives are becoming cheaper and cheaper everyday. Some companies are even giving them away. When they first arrived on the scene, most of the drives had a capacity of under 1GB. But now, you can find 2GB to 4GB drives almost everywhere, including your local drugstore chain. At these sizes, they can actually be useful. You can use it to store your music, pictures, videos, or documents. Some even use it to store bootable operating systems like Linux. I use it to store a text file that contains the passwords for all of my online accounts, such as for my online bank accounts, my Amazon account, credit card accounts, etc. And since the flash drives are so portable, it makes sense to have one. However, since they ARE so portable, they can easily be lost, stolen, or misplaced. If you are like me, and store personal information on your flash drive, information that you don't want to fall into the wrong hands, then you need to encrypt your flash drive. By encrypting your flash drive, the files contained within it become password protected and can only be accessed by you or someone who knows your password.



There are many different applications that help you encrypt your flash drive. Some drive manufacturers include encryption applications on the flash drive. In this tutorial, I will show you how to encrypt your portable USB flash drive using my favorite freeware application, TrueCrypt.

Encryption is absolutely essential, especially if you’re the kind of person that carries their USB stick around as if it’s your car keys or your lipstick. USB sticks are so small that they are easily lost and they are also easily stolen. Just think of all the information that gets stored on one of these things. The British Ministry of Defence has lost 131 of them since 2004! A friend of mine constantly drops his in the street when he walks his dog and his dog keeps walking back to pick it up! So it definately pays to take the time and have encryption.

Also, look at it this way. If someone found your USB stick and it was unencrypted, they would have access to your Firefox browser (with access to your private bookmarks, including online banking), your private files, your portable FTP program (with the settings to your website), passwords, emails, IM contacts and much more. If the person was honest, it might not be so bad, but if the person wasn’t honest….well then it could be catastrophic for you. Identity theft would only be the start of your problems.

The only problem with using Truecrypt for your encryption though is that you need to have administrator privileges on the computer in which you’re plugging your encrypted USB stick into. So this would be no good for internet cafes for example. This would only be good if you were travelling between multiple trusted personal and work computers and you wanted insurance against theft or loss while travelling around.

OK, let’s get insured.

Step One – Download Truecrypt 6.0

The obvious first step. Head on over and download the encryption program. BUT since you are putting this on your USB stick, you do NOT install this anywhere. When you double-click the “exe” file, you will see this. Choose the second option. This will just unpack the files onto your computer and not install anything.

When the files are unpacked, move the whole lot over to your USB stick. Once they are sitting on your USB stick, again don’t install anything. Just leave them there.

Step Two – Turn Truecrypt Into “Traveller Mode”

In your USB stick folder, double-click the “Truecrypt.exe” file and this opens up the main screen. Go to “tools” then “traveler disk setup”. That brings up this :

Change “create traveler disk files at” to whichever PC drive you have your USB stick in at the moment. Have the box underneath ticked. As to the Autorun configuration, well that’s down to personal preference so you decide. When you’ve done everything, press create. You’ll get a message a few moments later telling you that the traveler mode has been successfully created.

Step Three – Move Your Desired Programs Into Your USB stick

Now move your desired programs and files into your USB stick. As I said, I decided to put John Haller’s excellent PortableApps onto my USB stick. So I downloaded and moved all of them onto the USB stick next to the Truecrypt program as well as some documents. Notice we haven’t encrypted anything yet. That comes next.

Step Four – Create An Encrypted Area

OK, now we’re going to do the encryption. Go to the Truecrypt folder in your USB stick and double-click “Truecrypt Format.exe”. That brings up this screen.

Choose “create a file container” and follow these instructions from step 3 to make an encrypted container. I’m not going to go through it all here as it’s a long process. One important point though – do NOT fill up the whole USB stick. I would only make a container that fills up at most 75% of your USB stick. Leave the rest free and unencrypted. It’s always good to have some free space.

Before anybody points out option 2 which encrypts the entire USB stick, everyone I have talked to about this recommends that this shouldn’t be done because undoing it later is tricky and it can potentially mess up your USB drive. Doing it my way is better because a) you have some free space left for unencrypted files and b) if you don’t want Truecrypt anymore, you can just delete the whole lot. Much easier.

Step Five – Move The Programs Into The Encrypted Area

Once the encrypted container has been made, you will then have three things sitting in your USB stick – the folder with your programs / files, the folder with the Truecrypt application and the encrypted container you have just made. Now what you are going to do is move your programs and files INSIDE the encrypted container.

You do this by double-clicking “Truecrypt.exe” and “mounting” (choosing) on another drive, the encrypted container you have just made. This opens it up and unencrypts it. When it opens up, just drag your files and programs inside with your mouse. When you’re done, just dismount the container which closes it back up again and heavily encrypts it. No-one can get inside now without knowing the password. So I hope you chose a very good password!

Don’t forget to delete the programs and files which are sitting outside the encrypted container – the ones you just dragged inside the container are copies. If it reassures you, mount the container again, open it up and peek inside. You’ll see your files and apps inside all safe and sound.

Step Six – In Summary

So let’s recap what we’ve done here. We haven’t encrypted the whole USB stick. All we’ve done is put an encrypted container on the USB stick along with the Truecrypt encryption program to encrypt and unencrypt your files. If anyone was to steal the USB stick or find it (if you dropped it), all they would find on the drive would be an encrypted container which, without the password, is absolutely useless and unbreakable.

You also might want to put (on the unencrypted part of the drive) a text file with your name, email address and phone number so if a Good Samaritan were to come along, they would have a chance to do the right thing and return your property to you. A little incentive could also be mentioned depending on how desperate you are to get your property back.

Do you like to use any other encryption programs other than Truecrypt? What particular USB stick protection and detection methods have worked for you? Let’s hear about them in the comments!

REFERENCES

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/encrypt-your-usb-stick-with-truecrypt-60/

To start the process, make sure that TrueCrypt is installed on your computer system. If not, please see Installing TrueCrypt for a tutorial on how to install TrueCrypt. Double click on the TrueCrypt icon to start the TrueCrypt program.

Once TrueCrypt is running, you will see a window similar to the one on the left. Click on the Create Volume button in the middle of the window on the left hand side. This starts the TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard.

In the wizard window, select Create a standard TrueCrypt volume and then click on the Next > button.

The Volume Location window appears next. This lets you indicate where you want this volume to reside. Since we are going to be encrypting an entire USB drive, you want to click on the Select Device… button.

You can now select the device that you want to encrypt. This may be the most confusing part for most people since they are not typically acccustomed to how the drives are referenced. If you look under the Drive: column, you will see the drive letter that you are probably used to seeing. Select the letter of the drive you want to encrypt. Then, select the entry directly above the drive you want to encrypt. This will encrypt the entire drive and not just the partition. In the example that I am using, I want to encrypt the USB drive which is presently on the F: drive. So, I will chose Harddisk 2: to encrypt. Then click on the OK button.

Warning: Be very careful about the drive you select. If you select the wrong one, you could perminantly lose your data!

You should now be back at the Volume Location window and your location should appear. Click the Next > button.

You are now prompted for encryption options. Since we are just looking at creating a very basic volume, we will select AES for the Encryption Algorithm and RIPEMD-160 for the Hash Algorithm (I’ll get into what these are all about in a later article, I promise). Click on the Next > button.

The Volume Size window now appears. Since we are encrypting an entire USB drive, there are no options to select at this point. Click Next > to continue.

You are now asked for a password in order to access the volume. Be certain to select a good password (This sounds like it would make a good article as well). Enter it in both the Password: and the Confirm: boxes and then click Next >.

Warning: Do not forget your password because there is no known way of retreiving the password if it is lost. This means that you will never be able to get the data back.

In the Volume Format window, leave all of the default settings and click the Format button.

You are not presented with a warning window. Click on the OK button to proceed.

TrueCrypt will now start to format the volume. The length of time that the formatting process takes will vary depending on how big the USB drive is and how powerful your computer is. Please be patient while this finishes.

When the formatting is done, you will now have a TrueCrypt encrypted USB drive. Click on the Exit button to finish the wizard and then you can click on the Exit button to close TrueCrypt.

In upcoming articles, I will be talking about how to mount and dismount a TrueCrypt volume along with how to pick some more advanced options with the TrueCrypt system.

REFERENCES

http://dailycupoftech.com/?page_id=100