Letter Re: Prepper Digital Security

Mr. Latimer,

I read the article “Prepper Digital Security“, by A.B. and would like to offer a couple of comments.

The article mentions the use of TrueCrypt. I was a serious user of this software package until June of this year after Microsoft ceased support of Windows XP.

When that happened, the development of TrueCrypt was ended with very little explanation. I run Ubuntu Linux and used TrueCrypt. Now that development has stopped, I cannot get updates so am no longer protected if NSA finds another exploit.

The website has the following to say:

WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues.

This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt.

The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.

?A more exhaustive analysis of the termination of support is found online.

?So, what to do? As a computer software engineer with many years of experience in systems development, I have concluded that nothing is secure. If the government wants your data, it will get your data using whatever backdoor function it can gin up, not legally, and with or without force, torture, or financial ruin.

This is especially true in this day and age when we have “nation states” writing cyberwarfare applications, like Stuxnet.

I’ll leave it at that. I won’t make an effort to suggest any specific solution, since any I suggest could be circumvented by our government. – J.H.