Alternative to TrueCrypt?

TrueCrypt is distributed on a non-free license, and is therefore not included in the Fedora repos.

What alternatives would you suggest?

polemon

Posted 2011-08-31T10:59:33.367

Reputation: 2 531

Does the license really matter that much? They offer it for free :/ just add their repo. – William Hilsum – 2011-08-31T11:08:52.510

Well I heard that some if it is kind of secretly veiled from the public, as if they want to keep a backdoor open? I don't know, I didn't dive too much into that stuff. – polemon – 2011-08-31T11:11:32.257

I highly doubt that! It is open source, anyone can see the source code if they wish. – William Hilsum – 2011-08-31T11:25:19.990

@polemon: That's a very nice tin-foil hat you have, but you shouldn't rely on hearsay. Note that TC has been open-source for some time (and the full code has been reviewed). The problem that most distros have is that the license is not compatible with theirs. See e.g. this for Tom Callaway's (of Red Hat) take on it: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/distributions/2008-October/000276.html

– Piskvor left the building – 2011-08-31T11:39:32.010

Here is the TrueCrypt license, and it looks more copyleft than the BSD license but more copyright than the GPL (modifications are permitted, and you have to distribute the source). Also, that TrueCrypt information was added three years ago to that Wiki site (and their original recommendation was to use RealCrypt instead, but there's no point - just use TrueCrypt, it's the best encryption software I've ever used TBH).

– Breakthrough – 2011-08-31T13:13:14.827

@Piskvor: It isn't so much a tin-foil hat, as simply I took a look at the Linux integration, ans simply didn't like it. Compared to LUKS,TrueCrypt lacks in system integration. Also, TrueCrypt doesn't handle logical volume groups so well... – polemon – 2011-09-04T12:19:15.340

@polemon: That is something completely, completely different from what you're claiming in your previous comment: "I heard that some if it is kind of secretly veiled from the public, as if they want to keep a backdoor open? -polemon Aug 31 at 11:11" - that is a textbook example of hearsay-fuelled excessive paranoia, a.k.a. "tin-foil hat mode". I don't see how "TC doesn't integrate well with Linux" is equivalent to "TC is untrustworthy as it could contain backdoors". – Piskvor left the building – 2011-09-05T08:15:21.417

@Piskvor, I'll be very interested by a link about that full code review because I tried to find one last year without luck, thanks in advance. – Shadok – 2011-12-08T11:02:36.650

What would you suggest when encrypting USB flash drives, or SD cards? – polemon – 2011-08-31T11:22:18.650

LUKS is compatible with FreeOTFE, if you need a cross-platform tool. – user1686 – 2011-08-31T11:43:28.930

Well, I'm very happy with how well LUKS is integrated into the system. Cross-platform capabilities are nice to have, but FreeOTFE isn't a too great program... – polemon – 2011-09-03T22:51:22.447

Alternative to TrueCrypt?

Answers