Welcome to part one of this module.
In this video we're going to be looking at free and open source encryption in a Windows environment
using two nearly identical pieces of software very script and it's forebear True Crypt.
Before we begin I want to go over what this module is going to be about briefly.
This section of the class is going to be focusing on encryption as well as anonymity as these two subjects
are very closely linked.
If you are just coming from the Met a split module you may be expecting this section to follow a strict
progression like the last one did.
But that is not really necessary in this case.
We will be moving from one subject to another.
And while I will try to structure each presentation in such a way that it builds upon the next it shouldn't
be absolutely necessary to follow these videos in order.
For example if you wish to learn about virtual private networks and you don't care very much about encrypting
data locally you may wish to skip these initial videos if on the other hand you only want to learn about
encryption or how to encrypt your operating systems specifically or how to setup an encrypted dual boot
situation or see an overview on cryptocurrency.
You can just skip to the relevant videos.
With that being said Taken together this module should present you with the tools you need to achieve
a strong degree of anonymity.
However it is your responsibility to use what you learn here in conjunction with good operational security
or opsec.
This will be spoken of more at length as we go along the presentation for today.
As I said we'll be on open source encryption in windows here on the desktop.
I've placed two icons.
The first is True Crypt seven point one A and the second is a program called Vera crypt.
There is a reason why I'm talking about both of these two pieces of encryption software.
Even though True Crypt is no longer being offered by the developers it is quite old and it's probably
not really recommended that you use it over a very crypt.
However if you do decide to seek it out you will need to make sure that you've downloaded a good copy
of it and there are web pages such as this one where you can verify the individual hash of each True
Crypt file to ensure that you have a legitimate copy.
Very crypt.
On the other hand is still under development and can be downloaded directly from Vera crypt dot F. are
both true crypt in Vera crypt can be used in what is called portable mode meaning you only have to directly
install them if you want to use certain features such as full disk encryption which I'll speak about
shortly if you wish to download and install Vera crypt and just go ahead and download the installer
and run it and walk through the installation process normally there's no special hurdles if you wish
to use it in portable mode simply download Vera crypt portable and when you open it you will get a file
that looks like this and you can actually run better script just by clicking on the very crypt icon
and it will work perfectly in portable mode again with the exception of full disk encryption the same
is also the case for True Crypt which can likewise be used in portable mode or installed.
So what are these programs.
Put simply they are tools that allow you to encrypt files drives and even entire operating systems.
They will allow you to create what are called hidden volumes which are best described as secret files
within secret files and they will allow you to mount and read any applicable volumes.
True Crypt seven point one a was the final version of this encryption software that was simply the best
of the best.
Between the years 2000 and until about 2014 or so there were no known instances of the encryption being
broken or backdoor ID when it was used properly.
The software was so popular and so widely trusted that it received a well-funded independent audit which
you can read about online if you wish.
The findings were that while this software did have a few minor issues the overall encryption security
was rock solid except in a very few rare cases where windows cryptographic malfunctioned.
Even this was not a deal breaking bug.
However since the software also collects entropy from other sources thus it doesn't rely only upon windows
and I will be speaking about this more later as well.
The project ended when the mysterious developers of the software declared they would no longer be updating
it and it was widely believed this was due to governmental pressure to shutter a project that was considered
an existential threat to national security because it was never actually broken and because the developers
chose to shut down rather than bowed to pressure to compromise the project with the installation of
a backdoor true crypto seven point one a remains an extremely desirable piece of software.
That being said the last version of true crypto was released a little over four years ago and it is
not reasonable.
In early 2019 to use it as a demonstration.
Shortly after True Crypt was shuttered.
The code itself was forked by independent developers who also made it truly open source very crypt and
True Crypt are essentially the exact same thing but with a few caveats.
Everything you learn here using very crypt will also apply to True Crypt except in a very few cases
and I'll try to point out these little differences as we go along.
If you work with both these pieces of software the first thing you'll notice is that there are user
interfaces are exactly the same.
As I said everything you learn using very script will apply to true script.
The biggest difference between true script and Vera crypt is that true script cannot encrypt an operating
system if it uses a you EFI bootloader.
It's MPR only very crypt on the other hand has you EFI support very crypt also has updated the encryption
to be supposedly stronger although keep in mind no true crypt file has yet been shown to possess pregnant
all encryption.
The tradeoff is the very script is just slightly slower than true crypt.
Generally speaking for best performance vs. security I recommend using True Crypt if you plan to encrypt
older computers and very crypt for anything more recent.
The technique shown here will work for both.
We will start with a quick demonstration to illustrate what I'm talking about here on the desktop.
We have this text file called Secret Death Star plans.
It is vitally important that we get those plans to Princess Leia and the Rebel Alliance.
If the Galactic Empire should catch us we'll be done for.
So in this fictional scenario it's not a good idea to just upload our secret file in the clear or to
carry it openly on our laptop or U.S. B Drive.
Instead we're going to create a file called an encrypted container.
This can be done in very crypto portable mode and such containers can also be mounted in portable mode.
If you prefer to do this we would launch the program and then click the create volume button.
We're then presented with the volume Creation Wizard which gives us three options.
We'll be going over each of these but to start with we're going to make sure that the first radial button
is checked.
Create an encrypted file container then we'll click next.
The second menu tells us that we can create a standard volume or a hidden one.
A standard volume is very straightforward and we'll be doing that first but in the next demonstration
we'll see how to create a hidden one.
So for now click next.
Now we need to specify a location.
This can be somewhat misleading.
We are not going to select the file that we want to encrypt because that would delete the file.
Instead we're going to create what is called an encrypted container.
Think of an encrypted container like a safe with a combination lock.
The safe will be empty when we first create it.
We will supply the combination to unlock it and then we'll place our file inside.
Once we close the safe everything inside will be encrypted.
Also make absolutely sure that the never say of history button is checked.
The whole point of programs like this is really privacy and so you don't want them saving history at
any rate for this demonstration.
We'll be selecting the desktop and we'll name our file container r2 d2 then we'll click next.
With that done we're now presented with the encryption options.
This can look a bit daunting at first glance.
If we pull down the first context menu we can see all of our encryption options.
You can research these on your own if you wish.
Everyone out there has their own opinion about which algorithm is the best and why.
The fact is at the time of this recording there are no known instances of any of these algorithms being
broken.
They are all rock solid so there really isn't any wrong choice here.
But one thing to consider a single algorithm alone is going to be faster in terms of read write speeds
once we're done.
If you choose to use a cascade of algorithms such as for example ATX to fish serpent it may slow things
down considerably when encrypting a U.S. beat device.
It might slow down your read write speeds and when encrypting an entire operating system your performance
will suffer greatly.
For that reason I recommend using a single selection for full disk encryption and a cascading option
only for small files or USP devices when speed is less important than security.
One final thing to note here.
This is going to be our first difference between true crypto and bankrupt very crypto has a few extra
options such as Camellia and I really don't know how to pronounce this Xena.
Chuck.
These are Japanese and Russian ciphers respectively because they're new additions.
I cannot comment on their merit though I am confident they are strong or they wouldn't be included.
Nevertheless for this demonstration we'll be selecting a triple layer cipher encryption ATX 2 fish serpent
our second choice is going to be the hash algorithm we want to use.
Another difference between versions here is that in True Crypt you'll see our IP BMD dash 160 which
was removed from their script.
Our IP BMD was somewhat recently defeated along with SHA 1.
This should in no way affect our IP BMD 160.
However it is no longer considered one of the strongest choices so it has been removed very crypt has
replaced this choice with stream bog.
Now once again there really isn't a wrong choice here although everyone has their own opinion.
SHA 512 is used by the United States military and Whirlpool is an extremely popular choice as well.
Keep in mind that our IP BMD dash 160 and Shaw 256 may have slightly faster performance.
So balance your choice between your means for security and speeds.
In this case we're going to select Shaw 512 in this next step.
We need to specify how big are encrypted container is going to be going back to the earlier analogy.
How big of a volt do you want the size of the encrypted container can vary from the stated minimum size
for the file format you selected to the maximum amount of free space on the partition or device that
you're using for now let's just go with one megabyte.
This is because our text file that we want to encrypt is measured in kilobytes.
We need to make sure that our encrypted container is slightly larger than whenever file or files that
we wish to store inside it.
Then we need to set our password.
Obviously you want to use a very strong password here.
If you're going to be bothering using encryption at all.
If the password can be easily brute forced then you might as well not even bother.
You also have the option to use what are called key files.
In other words you can specify files that need to be present when you input your password.
It's a bit like having a combination lock on your vault but also requiring physical keys as well to
get the door open.
This gets a bit complicated so we won't be using key files in this particular example but keep in mind
that doing so is an option for added security.
However if you decide to use a file or files one thing you absolutely need to keep in mind is that if
the file changes even slightly you won't be able to open your encrypted volume even with the correct
password.
If you forget your password or if you lose your key files or if your key files become in some way changed
or corrupted even by a few killer bytes you're simply out of luck.
So be very careful with your selections here key files can be mostly anything by the way a photo a text
file an MP for whatever you like.
So these do add a much greater level of security.
But again just remember if you touch the file after creating the container and it gets even slightly
changed you'll be out of luck.
A very crypt also offers a third option here that true crypt does not and that is the use P I am box.
This gets really deep but basically PCM stands for personal iterations multiplier it is a parameter
that was recently introduced and allows the control of the number of iterations used by the hitter key
derivation function.
This value can be specified through the password dialog or in the command line.
If no PCM is specified Vera crypt will use the default number of iterations used in prior versions going
all the way back to True Crypt.
You absolutely do not need to do this.
However the option is available and that is why I mentioned it.
I'm not going to practice what I preach in this example I'm going to use a dirt simple password
once you've been put in your password click next
and when I click next to the program warns me that I'm being an idiot and that I should use a password
of at least 20 characters but will ignore this for now this next screen has a couple of things going
on.
First we can see the file system we want are encrypted container or partition to be formatted with depending
on the size of the container or partitions.
Your options here are going to be different very small containers will be limited to fat ex fat and
possibly fat 32 large files will also include NTFS.
Be aware that very crypto includes ex fat as an option.
True Crypt does not.
This will be important later but I thought it worth mentioning now.
You can also adjust the cluster size although I do not recommend this.
You can leave it by default unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise.
There is a slight cosmetic difference between versions here but if we click this box we can see that
the symbols have been changed to numbers and letters.
This is our random pool and as we move the mouse around within the very script or True Crypt window
the complexity of the pool will grow.
This is one of the safety precautions.
These pieces of software use so that you are not 100 percent dependent upon windows cryptographic functions.
These functions can fail and it can also be potentially compromised by nation state actors to produce
a weak or predictable random pool.
This would make it trivially easy to obtain the master key and access the file or the container rather.
For that reason it is recommended that you waive your mouse cursor around inside this window like a
crazy person for as long as you can stand it in order to increase the cryptographic strength and randomness
of your encrypted container file or partition.
If for some reason you want the header or master key to not appear on the screen simply uncheck this
box.
Otherwise click format.
The volume has been created so we'll exit the wizard.
I'm going to minimize this for the moment
we can see the volume has been created.
We can see here.
But it isn't immediately clear what the file is.
However one thing I want to point out when we click properties is that this file still contains certain
metadata that can be used to identify where and when it was created notice that the date created owner
and computer information are displayed.
And this information cannot be properly removed.
If this is a concern you may wish to create a file like this or rather an encrypted container I should
be calling it that on a system that you have no personal connection with or possibly in a live boot
situation.
One last thing to point out.
We can once again right click on this file and we can rename it and give it any file extension that
we wish for example.
Period.
I and I.
Now it looks like your typical iron I file.
They could maybe hide in a game directory or something like that.
We could even disguise this file as an MP for or a picture file or anything we like.
Just by changing the file extension now of course the file won't behave like any of those things but
the point is to make it more inconspicuous.
At any rate so we now have r2 d2.
We need to put the death star plans inside it to do this.
We will once again open Vera crypt.
Please note that Vera crypt is backwards compatible with True Crypt meaning that it can open a True
Crypt container.
Provided that you check the little box that says True Crypt mode.
The reverse however is not true.
True Crypt cannot open a very crypt container so begin by selecting a drive on this list.
I recommend using Z unless you have a Z drive already.
Then we click select file we'll select r2 d2 and we will click open.
Now all we have to do is press the Mount button and supply our password
if you were to mount a true script file you would click the true script mode button right here.
Auto detection simply means that the program will auto detect which cipher methods are being used when
it attempts to mount the file.
It might save time if you manually input this but you really don't need to.
If you wish to use key files you would click this box and then specify them will address mount options
a bit later
display password is self-explanatory so we'll click OK after a few moments we can see that the container
has been mounted to drive Z the space left inside the container is listed encryption algorithm method
or methods used and the type of the container which in this case is normal with the container now mounted
as a drive.
We go to our computer
and we see that it appears as local disk Z as if it were a partition or a US b device.
So we'll simply open it and we can see that the file is empty.
So now we want to put our supersecret Death Star plans inside
and now we will close the file and then when we're done interacting with the container we can go back
to the very crypt or True Crypt window and simply click dismount.
Now when we go back to the computer
we can see that the Z drive is gone and we can see that the text file is nowhere to be found.
Of course I did just delete it.
But you do get the idea.
It's now contained inside our encrypted container r2 d2.
Now we can feel a lot safer uploading this file to the cloud or whatever else we want to do that might
bring it into contact with unfriendly eyes.
This first method was how to create a normal encrypted container.
Now we're going to take a look at how to create a hidden container and exactly what such a container
actually is.
The Death Star plans are now safely in our TOS memory banks.
He's ready to seek out Obi Wan Kenobi.
But what if an imperial agent puts a blaster to Princess lay his head.
What if Darth Vader demands that she give up the encryption password.
What then.
What do you do when you find yourself in a situation where for whatever reason you cannot refuse to
hand over your encryption key.
This is where hidden containers come into play.
The basic idea is that you create a container within a container one password unlocks the so-called
outer volume.
This is a container where you keep files that you don't actually mind giving up to an adversary.
A second password will unlock the hidden volume which contains the real files.
It is not currently directly possible to tell if an encrypted container exists within another encrypted
container.
That is to say a hidden volume within an outer volume.
There are circumstances where it might be possible.
And these are detailed in the very script and True Crypt docu documentation.
And I do encourage you to read these when you have a chance.
However generally speaking there really is no way to tell unless a mistake is made.
And this gives you plausible deniability.
Princess Leia can give Darth Vader the fake password.
Vader opens up or choose memory banks and gets Layers collection of vacation photos tax records and
her My Little Pony fanfics.
He may strongly suspect the presence of a hidden volume but there's no way to prove it definitively.
The process for creating such a volume is only slightly more complicated than a regular one.
So once again we're going to open up their crypt or True Crypt and we're going to click the create volume
button once again we'll select an encrypted file container in the volume Creation Wizard.
That's the first option and click Next Only this time we're going to click the radial button for hidden
very crypt volume click.
Next we will be choosing normal mode as a side note you could use direct mode to create a hidden volume
in an already existing volume.
But I recommend doing this all as one procedure for reasons that I'll explain shortly.
For now click Next once again will need to specify what we want to place the file and give it a name.
So again I'm going to pick the desktop.
Call it bebe 8 save and make sure never save history is checked click next.
Now we're going to create the outer volume exactly as before.
Select the encryption that you want however make certain that whatever encryption and hash algorithms
you select are selected again for the hidden volume so once again I'm going to do a yes to fish serpent
though again there are no wrong choices here and SHA 512 when you've made your selections click next.
This time let's give it a decent amount of space so that we can see alternate format options.
We'll do 100 megabytes and we'll need to set a password for the outer volume to be credible.
This should be a long and powerful password and it must be distinctly different from the one you use
to setup the secure hidden volume.
Again you have the option to use key files or p.m. if you so desire.
Once again you're going to want to waive your mouse cursor around like a crazy person to build up randomness
for the encryption process.
Notice again that we can change our file system format for the outer volume.
This choice will not affect the file system of the hidden volume.
But notice what happens when we select a..
F S for the outer volume and try to click format it will give us this warning.
And this may seem complicated but bear with me.
Note that the f 80 or x f 80 file system is more suitable for outer volumes than the NTFS file system.
For example the maximum possible size of the hidden volume will very well very likely be significantly
greater if the outer volume is formatted as fat or ex fat.
The reason is that NTFS file system always stores internal data exactly in the middle of the volume
and therefore the hidden volume can reside only in the second half of the outer volume.
What this is telling you is if you have a 100 megabyte file and you create an outer volume that is just
intended to be fake and you're not planning to really use it for very much and then you select NTFS
for the outer volume format you're only going to have about 50 megabytes for the hidden volume.
That's because it stores things directly in the middle of the volume so it's going to be a lot of wasted
space particularly on a larger drive such as for example and an external USP drive.
Of course if you decide to format with fat or ex fat you might want to have a reason in your head for
why you did that.
If you're ever asked why you chose that file format over NTFS.
So with that being said we're going to click No.
And we're going to go with other fatter X Fadl choose X fat this time I'll leave the random pool header
key and master key hidden just because I can and will click format.
One more thing.
True Crypt being older does not have X fat as an option.
You can create a volume that exceeds two terabytes.
Using True Crypt but you must use the NTFS file system for any outer volume you create and that will
mean a lot of wasted space in the inner volume.
The process is relatively quick.
Once again we are presented with a window that allows us to open the outer volume the volume is now
mounted and we can put files we don't care about inside.
These are files that look important but we can afford to allow an adversary to see them.
Please be aware that this is really your one and only chance to add files to the outer volume.
It is possible to mount the outer volume later in protected mode.
However you won't be able to add files to it and if you add files to it outside of protected mode you
run the risk of damaging files in the hidden volume so take some time now to place files in the outer
volume before proceeding to the next step.
I really should have created a fake one but fake map to Luke Skywalker and we will save as and will
place it on the desktop.
This fake map
so we'll click open outer volume we'll drag our file inside
and I realized that emptying the recycling bin is not really securely deleting the file.
But again this is just a demonstration.
So now our fake map is inside the outer volume.
And this is what we don't mind an adversary seeing.
So if we're ever forced to give up our password and they mount this volume they're going to see this
fake file that looks real and it looks like something that you would want to encrypt but it's actually
completely irrelevant.
When we're done we'll close that and we'll click next.
Now it's time to create the hidden volume.
We need to use the same options here that we used for the outer volume which is to say the same encryption
algorithm and hash algorithm click next.
Here again we have to allocate space.
You can make the hidden volume very small if you want to add files to the outer volume later so as to
avoid damaging the contents of the hidden volume.
As a rule though you really don't want to ever add anything to the outer volume ever again.
If you use any format other than NTFS for the outer volume you should be able to allocate as much space
as you have left.
You won't be able to use a decimal point so select the killer byte radial option.
If you care about that tiny bit extra it's not a bad policy to leave a tiny bit extra for the outer
volume just in case
when you're ready click Next select your hidden password.
This is the real password.
The one you keep secret no matter what.
If forced to give a password you would give the password to the outer volume and keep this password
to yourself
when ready click next for the hidden volume.
We're gonna go ahead and we're going to select NTFS for the file format although you can use another
file system if you so desire.
Then we're going to wave our mouse around as randomly as possible we can leave the master key hidden
it doesn't matter and we will click format.
Be aware that formatting the hidden volume does not take as long as formatting the outer layer provided
you do this all at once.
This is telling us that we have successfully created the hidden volume so we'll exit now let's go ahead
and create a file.
Want to hide
once again.
We're going to select whatever drive we want to mount our newly created container on.
We will select file
and select our container click mount.
Now if we enter the outer volume password we will be mounting the false layer the outer volume but we're
going to do the hidden volume
noticed that this time under type we see the word hidden so if we go to computer
we can see the amount of space by the way that we have in this drive that is free
and we'll go ahead and we'll put our real map inside
then we'll dismount
and we'll go ahead and we'll mount the outer volume
this time when we go to computer and access our zip drive.
We can see the fake map notice also that under type.
It says normal.
It's not really a normal volume.
It's a it's an outer layer.
Well but in order to make the deception convincing it will report itself as being normal.
Now if we wanted to mess around with the outer layer without running the risk of damaging the hidden
inner layer we need to take one more step in the mounting process.
We're going to click mount options.
We're going to click.
Protect hidden volume against damage by writing to the outer volume then we need to select our hidden
volume password click.
OK and now we supply our outer volume password as normal
notice this time under type.
The outer volume now says outer.
This reveals that a hidden volume exists so only do this if you are alone and only do this when you
wish to make changes to the contents of the outer volume without risking damage to the inner volume.
What you have just seen as the basic premise for the more advanced forms of encryption that we'll be
seeing next.
Let's go ahead and encrypt a USP thumb drive
so I've gone ahead and I've plugged in the USP device.
Now this device was already formatted with very script which is to say it's already encrypted.
This is good because it allows me to show off what happens when you plug in any sort of an encrypted
device.
The operating system will look at it and it will see random data.
It will not recognize the device as being formatted.
If you click format and then if you were to click the Start button or whatever continuation button your
operating system offers you you would delete your encrypted data.
So be very careful not to do this.
I have seen it happen.
So to start out with we're going to click the create volume button once again only this time we're going
to select the second radial option in the very script Creation Wizard.
This is the same for true script by the way encrypt a non sys partition or drive.
This is the most suitable option for flash drives.
You could also create an encrypted container as you have seen before and store it on the drive.
But this would be much more obvious to someone looking at it click next and we will go ahead and make
this a hidden volume just like what you saw previously will click Next we'll do this in normal mode.
And now we need to select the device.
Now this is a little bit tricky or confusing to some people.
If the device has no partition table you can select the device by its name and this will encrypt the
entire drive.
However you can't do this if you have a partition or partitions on the drive.
And the reason you might not want to do this is that some operating systems get a little bit overzealous
about formatting any device that they don't automatically recognize formatting the partition will simply
show an encrypted partition or a lot of nonsense data and you'll still be prompted to format the device.
But by doing this the device won't even have a basic partition table so it is up to you and I don't
really have any advice on this it depends on your personal security needs.
However an expert will still be able to detect True Crypt or very crypt headers so I'm of the opinion
that it really doesn't matter that much.
I personally go with this option which is to say I encrypt the drive.
I find this to be easier and more reliable and I don't really like wiping up the partition table on
a drive before encrypting it.
It is your option.
So I'm simply pointing that out when you've made up your mind.
Click OK.
Make sure never save history is checked.
Unless of course you wanted to save the history and click next.
This is the outer volume creation.
This is exactly the same as before.
However I am going to point out that cascading ciphers will make for a slower read right speed when
you are moving files back and forth from the encrypted USP device not anywhere near as slow as an encrypted
operating system or partition would be.
I personally still think that cascading ciphers is a good way to go for USP devices but you are perfectly
okay using something like a yes serpent or to fish.
You don't need to use a cascading cipher.
These are still very very strong encryption options.
It is your choice.
I'm going to go with once again.
Actually we'll mix things up or go with let's go with the one I can't pronounce who is unique.
Serpent Camellia.
That was my best guess and we don't have to do Shaw 512.
In this case we'll do Whirlpool click Next also notice that the maximum amount of the space is going
to be used for the outer volume and then we can set the space that we want to use for the inner or hidden
volume depending on which file format we go with click.
Next we will supply the outer volume password
okay.
Again key files or PCM can be set.
Click Next Wave your mouse cursor around like a crazy person.
Also notice the format options that are currently available.
And remember that formatting the outer volume to NTFS is not recommended for the reasons that we've
gone over.
Once your randomness pool is completed to your satisfaction and by the way this board down here is just
a recommendation.
You can do this for hours if you want to which I will of course not do in this video.
And you can't set the cluster.
Though I personally always leave it as default.
When you're ready click format.
And it will warn you that all files currently stored on the device will be deleted.
Please keep this in mind.
Files on the device are not going to be encrypted.
You are overwriting everything to create an encrypted container.
By doing this you will then place the files that you wish to be encrypted inside that container.
So please don't get confused and delete any important data when you're ready click.
Yes because this is a USP device with significantly more space.
The encryption process is going to take a while on a particularly large drive such as perhaps a three
terabyte external hard drive.
This process can actually take days.
So please bear that in mind
once the process is complete will open the outer volume exactly as we did in the prior demonstration
and will place a fake file into it so we'll click the open outer volume button and I don't have a fake
file prepared so let's just grab BBH which is an encrypted container and drag it right in there.
This is something that you can in fact do.
If you're really paranoid you could create a Russian doll of encryption so to speak with an encrypted
container inside another encrypted container inside another encrypted container and so on and so forth.
If you really wanted to in fact is the WikiLeaks insurance file that was released some time ago is an
example of implementing just such a multilayered container where if one layer of encryption is penetrated
there is another encrypted container beneath it.
And if that layer is penetrated and so on and so on and so forth.
It's also a way of releasing passwords incrementally so that if you wish a particular file to be released
at a certain date for example this might be one way of doing it.
In any case we've now created our hidden layer and we've placed in our our data that we don't care if
that gets detected.
So we'll close this click neck and now exactly as before we're going to set up the hidden volume same
selection.
I am not going to try this word again and Whirlpool for the hash algorithm and we will select the amount
of space the maximum in this case is going to be eight hundred and thirty five megabytes.
We could do it in kilobytes to get that extra point 8 4 but I don't care.
8 3 5 and we'll click Next we'll ignore this warning and we'll supply our password
and this time we will select NTFS.
Again you could do fatter ex fat if you so desired fat 32 is also an option in some cases for larger
drives and once you're satisfied with the random pool collection you simply click format and notice
that this will not take as long to format the hidden volume as the outer volume because we're doing
this all at once.
That's something to keep in mind when you're formatting a four terabyte drive or something of that nature.
If it takes two or three days to do the outer volume it will not necessarily take more than five minutes
to do the hidden volume.
This is one of the advantages of doing it all at once and it will warn you not to select a mount point
for the drive letter that is currently assigned to the device.
Volume successfully created.
We will exit this.
We will select a mount point.
Again I'm just going to pick Zed and we will use auto mounts and we will give it our hidden password
please keep in mind that auto Mount is a bit longer than a specific mount because it's going to check
every possible mount point for a very decrypt file and if you click the true crypt option box it will
check for True Crypt as well it will automatically recognize headers but this may take some time.
I just wanted to show off that the option is available because there may be circumstances where you
don't know if a device that you have is actually encrypted because for some reason you can't see the
headers which is a rather complicated process to figure out exactly what kind of random data is on a
drive.
So keep the auto mount devices option in mind if you wish to relatively quickly check to see if a device
or a container is a true crypto or very crypto file.
The USP device is now mounted exactly as a container file would be so we open up our Z drive and we
can now interact with it.
We've placed our hidden file in the hidden container We dismount all and we're done.
And keep in mind it's possible to encrypt pretty much anything you don't have to only use an encrypted
container or a USP drive you could encrypt an SD card or a non sys partition or really any anything
that can contain a file system.
What you have to keep in mind is that things get complicated when you look at encrypting an operating
system which is what we're going to be looking at in the next video.
The USB stick can be mounted exactly the same way as a file container.
You just plug it in and you can use auto mount.
And keep in mind you can melt file containers in very crypt that are True Crypt formatted in the portable
versions as well as in the installed versions.
That's just something to keep in mind as well.
One more thing I'd like to call your attention to in this by the way concludes the practical demonstration
part of this video.
So if you got what you needed and you don't care to hear the history of True Crypt and bear crypt then
I'll see you in the next video.
If you do want to hear this one thing I want to point out is true crypt was in fact audited.
And you can find this information online quite easily is True Crypt AUDITED YET dot com.
Now this was some time ago.
This was obviously back in 2015 after the project had been officially shuttered by the developers.
Now they did find a few issues.
None of them in my opinion are deal breakers.
And the encryption remained extremely strong.
The project therefore it was believed and opinions do differ on this point.
It was believed that the project was shut down because the developers who were essentially a group of
unknowns.
They were quite shadowy received pressure from a governmental entity requiring them to insert a backdoor
or weaken the encryption in some way.
They chose not to do this and instead completely pulled the plug on their own project.
Shortly after that the code was forked and although True Crypt was open source it was always kind of
this nebulous sort of quasi open source will very crypt is 100 percent open sourced.
It was also audited and some of the changes that were made to Vera crypt for example support for you
EFI boot loaders was initially found to be somewhat pregnant all.
Now this has been fixed with current versions of Vera script and new updates are constantly being released.
This is the advantage of open source encryption over let's say a a private corporate offering such as
for example bit locker open source means that there are many eyes upon a project and the methods used
the encryption algorithms used.
All of that can be tested and examined in detail to make sure that it is in fact trustworthy with a
corporate offering a closed source offering that is to say for example bit locker you can never be sure
that whoever is offering the software hasn't either weakened the encryption in some way or installed
some form of a backdoor that they would then give up to a governmental entity or even use themselves
for their own private gain.
These are things to consider and this is why I think that open source encryption really open source
anything is very important in the security sphere.
I strongly encourage you if this is a subject that you find interesting to research this very carefully
on your own and see what all the different encryption software does and how it stacks up and so forth
against other forms of encryption true crypto and very script are only really useful in Windows however
they can be installed in Linux and you can mount true crypto in very clipped files in linux using the
Linux versions of these programs.
We will be looking at Linux encryption programs later in this module.
The final thing I wish to say here is that there are different laws concerning encryption in different
parts of the world.
Obviously it is perfectly legal in the United States to use encryption.
However that may not be true everywhere depending on what part of the world you live in.
Encryption may in fact not be legal or you may be under a legal obligation to give up your password
without any form of warrant.
I am obviously not a lawyer or a legal expert so I must at this time now admonish you to make certain
that you are using this encryption in a lawful way for whatever part of the world you're living in.
With that being said will look at full disk encryption in the next video.
And keep in mind that although True Crypt is a very good piece of software it is out of date.
So if you're using it in a professional environment you're probably going to raise some eyebrows and
not everyone believes that this remained impregnable.
I have not seen any evidence that it was broken.
However I would only consider using True Crypt in this day and age on older computers particularly 32
bit computers.
If I were to encrypt an entire operating system I would not use True Crypt on anything modern.
Remember that very crypt has you EFI bootloader support True Crypt does not and very crypt can handle
much larger files than True Crypt can.
So that is something to keep in mind and remember to always do your due diligence with these programs
and stay up to date to make sure that none of these inscriptions have been broken.
This is a constantly evolving subject and newer and better programs updates and encryption methods are
constantly being released as old ones come into question.
So that's something to keep in mind.
Thank you for your attention and I'll see you next time.