[me, admin, tech] Request re TrueCrypt news

[siderea]

I always appreciate it when people sent me links and information about things I've posted in my journal. I'd like to make a special request to be updated on any new developments in the TrueCrypt story. If anything happens, please bring it to my attention.

I've decided that I really, really can't be monitoring this one for myself. I've realized

Comments

[londo]

I will keep this in mind in the general and specific cases.

[apostle_of_eris]

In this particular case, I doubt you *can* miss any important developments. It's such a Big Deal that everything will be echoed ferociously.
Hold on to every pre-7.2 copy you have!

[fiddlingfrog]

There's a theory that taking the initials of the words in ("Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues" gives "uti nsa im cu si", a Latin phrase that can be roughly translated as "Unless I want to use the NSA."

Full details at https://www.livebusinesschat.com/smf/index.php?topic=5629.0

[siderea]

Thanks for the update!

With respect, that looks like no Latin with which I am familiar. While "si" means "if", it would IIRC only show up at the beginning of a phrase. Wiktionary doesn't recognize either "im" or "cu" as Latin words, and neither do I. Latin tends not to have a lot of short words, being an inflected language that inflects by adding syllables. I'd like to see more substantiation of the claim that's actually Latin before giving it any more credence.

[jducoeur]

Followup on Ars Technica: one of the developers apparently says that forking TrueCrypt would be "impossible", and recommends a from-scratch reimplementation instead. Which just muddies the waters further -- I could see "difficult" or "illegal", but "impossible" is a curious choice of words. (Unless, possibly, he means that it is impossible to get consensus among the devs to provide the necessary copyright release...)

[siderea]

Huh. I am struck by the epic lack of transparency around TrueCrypt, generally, all this is revealing.

ETA: having read the article, he's not saying forking TrueCrypt is impossible, he's saying getting official permission for an authorized fork is impossible, and that he feels forking TrueCrypt isn't a good idea.

I have no idea whether that's a meaningful distinction, but there you go.