I make this post in full knowledge that the Governments involved will be able to establish my identity; but it's important for the community to know the following information.
Some 2.5 years ago I was raided by a federal law enforcement agency who seized all electronic devices they could find on the premesis. Nearly all computers and hard drives had been encrypted using Veracrypt, version 1.13 I believe, and were powered down at the time of seizure. Since that time, multiple nation states and private contractors have tried their best to gain access to any/all of my Veracrypt-protected devices -- without success. The investigation has now ended, and the devices have been returned to me.
We can therefore conclude that the version of Veracrypt I used has no back-door. If it did, my strongly motivated and well-funded investigators (or their international partners) would have gained access long ago. Furthermore, all full-disk encrypted hard drives with no bootloader were returned to me much earlier -- just months after being seized -- as the police agency overseeing the case could only reason that those drives were "wiped or defective". They had no way of knowing that those devices in fact contained terabytes of encrypted data. This means that plausible deniability works because there is no sure way to distinguish a wiped drive from an encrypted one if no bootloader is present.
A friend of mine will soon be donating $10,000 via Bitcoin in my name to help further the development of this software.
Thank you for protecting my private files against unauthorized access.
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Thank you for your post! I have been using this software ever since truecrypt ended. It is a solid program. I agree that donations are important for the continued development.
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Just a note, if this is indeed a legitimate posting, then you need to be very careful moving forward. If there are state-level actors that are interested in your files, then every device that has been returned to you must now be considered insecure. Even components on them can have been swapped out or tampered with. Hard drive controller boards can be switched, firmwares altered, wireless capability added to drives, all in an effort to get access to those files.
VeraCrypt is indeed secure, but once someone else gets their hands on your hardware, you can never trust it again. If you desperately require files off those drives, since you already know you have a state-level adversary, there are some very specific precautions you need to take before accessing them. Remember, they still have copies of your data. All they need is your password, and they would love to watch you type that in.
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I agree and will be taking extreme precautions if I ever decide I want to get the data off the drives assuming I can remember the passwords of course. Do you have any further recommendations for me to follow?
I'm very cognizent of the fact that each device is likely riddled with malware.
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Assumptions:
1. They did not crack your password or keys.
2. They still want information that is on the drives.
3. The computer hardware was tampered with.
Analysis:
1. The computer hardware may have been tampered with. The HDD hardware may have been tampered with. It is likely impossible to ever know.
2. The good news is that it's unlikely that any data that was in the encrypted scope of the hard drive can have been tampered with. It's not feasible to tamper with encrypted data in a way that will make it decrypt to something meaningful. All they can do is render it unusable.
3. The other good news is that the HDD never sees the unencrypted key or password, all decryption is done in memory. This means that even if there is some sort of hardware monitoring in the drive that reading the drive is basically safe, since any hardware monitoring they may have installed can only get them what they already have obtained by cloning the drive.
4. Any software or data outside the scope of encryption for the drive is suspect. Assume the bootloader has been compromised. Assume any software outside the encryption scope is riddled with malware.
Recommendations:
1. Dispose of all non-HDD hardware summarily. Do not be tempted to keep RAM, monitors, cases, power supplies... any of it. They want your password and monitoring you to get it is the best way to get it. Dispose of it all before you even make preparations to access the HDDs
2. Purchase a new identically sized (or larger) drive to put data on for any HDD you need to retrieve data off of. Go to a retail store to do this, do not order it online.
3. Use a hardware disk cloning device like a KingWin EZClone to clone the old HDD. Once cloned, destroy the old drive. Make sure it is destroyed and its remains are far away from where you end up using the cloned drive.
4. Boot up the new computer using a freshly downloaded Live Linux CD. Do not use Windows at all if you can avoid it. Under no circumstances should you use Windows 10. Install VeraCrypt in Linux.
5. Create and mount an encrypted container to store the data. Make sure that you do not reuse the old password for this container. You will only ever type that old password in one more time, and then thereafter you will never use it again.
5. Hook up the cloned drive to the new computer, the same KingWin EZClone will act as a USB bridge if you like. Mount the cloned drive from within Linux. This is the one and only time you will ever use that password again. Make sure there are no windows where you type in that password. Make sure there are no computers, cell phones, or any other smart devices within a 100 yards of you. Make sure you are not connected to a network.
6. Copy the data that you need off the mounted cloned drive onto the newly created encrypted container.
7. Once the data is off wipe the cloned drive with random data. Unmount the destination container too.
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Hypothetically speaking of course, would overwriting the bootloader on the cloned drive after cloning be beneficial at all?
Your Recommendations subsection #2 is interesting. Earlier this year I purchased a special piece of hardware online for unrelated use (it was a type of data storage device). During shipping, the device was "lost" in the mail for 3-5 days before finally arriving. Obviously I never opened or used the device.
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Here I meant is it beneficial hypothetically speaking to destroy the boot sector area (track 0) and overwrite it with random data before mounting in linux. I did not mean or intend to replace the current bootloader with a fresh bootloader.
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very please to hear this, thank you for making this post. Please post proof of btc donation when is done to make this post even more credible .
can you please tell us if you had ssds or just hard drives?and also what country are we talking about to get an idea of their resources ?
Last edit: Andrei Matanache 2019-05-27
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Previous post got blocked for some reason typing best I can remember...
The donation will appear on the public blockchain at the address published by Veracrypt on the main screen, namely 1NRoPQsm8by5iWyMMmHQy3P5takur3kYgG
There were around 10-15 hard drives, approximately equal in SSD and HDD. 100% of the SSDs had bootloaders and 100% of the HDDs did not. Two countries were involved in the decryption efforts and both are part of Five Eyes.
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Two countries were involved in the decryption efforts and both are part of Five Eyes.
As much as I am confident in VeraCrypt's security (and, again, assuming this is a legitimate account), people shouldn't read too much into the notion that two Five Eyes countries had the drives. It's likely that they just weren't really motivated enough to want the data.
Let's look at this. If 100% of SSDs were boot drives, and there were 5-7 of them, that implies 5-7 computers. One would have to be naive to assume that a five eyes law enforcement and/or security service had the jurisdiction and authority to sieze 5-7 computers and couldn't have covertly observed the same computers for 24 hours prior in order to get the passwords.
They obviously didn't care enough about the contents to take any effort at preparation, which also means that it's hardly likely something they dedicated any time on "The Hammer" to. That number of computers implies approximately that number of people who know the password. Which is 5-7 people to sweat - that's enough that someone would crack.
If this is anything, it's likely something that involved low-level law enforcement. Maybe RCMP/FBI as a consultant sort of thing. Nothing they dedicated real resources to, or that they would be willing to even tp off the capalities of their real resources in order to get into.
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I am not sure why you went off base with some odd assumptions. There was exactly one person who knew the passwords to all of the hard drives, me. Nobody else. There were 3 Five Eyes agencies directly involved and they were all federal, but only two were involved with the encrypted drives according to documents.
The investigation according to documents was rated "High Priority" and "Tier 1" by the Director of National Security in my country.
The agency attempted to conduct covert surveillance of me prior to executing search warrants according to other documents and warrants. I detected their undercover operation at the time.
Nobody had any ability to observe the computers before executing the warrants because they were stored in a residential unit (mine) in a high rise building many floors above ground and telescope level. No other units in any other buildings could see inside. Furthermore, there was no way for them to gain covert access to the unit because I had a camera pointed at the only entrance door to alert me of any unauthorized entry by thieves. The computers were always powered down when not directly in use because hey, who wants to pay for electricity you're not using!
What I was investigated for is irrelevant. All that matters for the purposes of this forum is that they tried their best to gain access and could not do so. They have and used backdoors into other technologies but that's a discussion for another time.
I am not sure why you went off base with some odd assumptions.
I based my statements on what you've said: 5-7 bootable drives implies 5-7 computers. Not many people have that many computers at home.
The agency attempted to conduct covert surveillance of me prior ... I detected their undercover operation at the time... nobody had any ability to observe the computers ... above ground and telescope level ... there was no way for them to gain covert access
No offense, but if they'd wanted eyes on, they would have had eyes on.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. My comments aren't really even aimed at you. They are aimed at the one or two hundred other people who will read this thread in the days, weeks, and months ahead. I want them to know they should not read too much into this report. I am not disparaging VeraCrypt's security. Just the opposite. I am quite satisfied as to its security (though I recommend no one trust AES by itself). But that confidence doesn't come from anecdotes like this, and this is not where people should get their warm and fuzzies about VeraCrypt from either. For all any of us know, some agency has just found a weakness and wants us to think VeraCrypt is 100% secure. Think of it from that point of view. If CSE/CSIS or NSA fully broke AES what is the first thing I'd want to make sure of? I'd want to make sure to reassure everyone that it's perfectly safe because I don't want them switching. I'd make sweeping statements that "VeraCrypt" is secure because I know that AES is its default cipher.
VeraCrypt isn't a black box. It's not something that, in its entirety, is either secure or not. It is an implementation of quite a few cryptographic functions and primitives. People need to research the ciphers and hashes it uses and decide based on evidence, trends in each algorithm's security margin, and their own desired safety margins what is the best way to secure their data. No one should just trust VeraCrypt blindly, not even you who have the most proof of its usefulness. No one should trust any one cipher or hash used in VeraCrypt blindly. People who make sweeping statements that "VeraCrypt is secure" or that "VeraCrypt has no backdoors" do that kind of research and evidence-based decision making a disservice. It just encourages people to blindly trust the name "VeraCrypt".
Now, I am pretty sure everyone would love to thank your friend for the donation. I certainly do. Thank-you! Thanks to your friend! I am glad that VeraCrypt worked for you both. I hope the funding helps to make VeraCrypt even better. I just want to make it clear to people that this sort of anecdote is not what they should base security decisions on. And people shouldn't necessarily just trust the default settings. They need to make informed decisions.
I hope that makes sense.
Thanks again. :)
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Fair enough. I didn't specify what encryption methods I used or what the strength of the passwords were just that they couldn't gain access.
This post will be helpful to direct users to use Veracrypt vs something like Bitlocker and others may find comfort in having a court case where specific software they use was battle tested against national law enforcement agencies. Their internal emails to each other and court sworn affidavits expressed frustration at being unable to view my private files and I enjoyed reading every single one of them.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
all respect to you and your friend for donating to this really good project, the developers really deserve it. Hopefully they are now motivated to improve the program even more. I hope they start fixing the nvme ssd speed problems
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I make this post in full knowledge that the Governments involved will be able to establish my identity; but it's important for the community to know the following information.
Some 2.5 years ago I was raided by a federal law enforcement agency who seized all electronic devices they could find on the premesis. Nearly all computers and hard drives had been encrypted using Veracrypt, version 1.13 I believe, and were powered down at the time of seizure. Since that time, multiple nation states and private contractors have tried their best to gain access to any/all of my Veracrypt-protected devices -- without success. The investigation has now ended, and the devices have been returned to me.
We can therefore conclude that the version of Veracrypt I used has no back-door. If it did, my strongly motivated and well-funded investigators (or their international partners) would have gained access long ago. Furthermore, all full-disk encrypted hard drives with no bootloader were returned to me much earlier -- just months after being seized -- as the police agency overseeing the case could only reason that those drives were "wiped or defective". They had no way of knowing that those devices in fact contained terabytes of encrypted data. This means that plausible deniability works because there is no sure way to distinguish a wiped drive from an encrypted one if no bootloader is present.
A friend of mine will soon be donating $10,000 via Bitcoin in my name to help further the development of this software.
Thank you for protecting my private files against unauthorized access.
Thank you for your post! I have been using this software ever since truecrypt ended. It is a solid program. I agree that donations are important for the continued development.
Nice !!!!!! VeraCrypt is great program !! Thank You Mounir !!!!
Just a note, if this is indeed a legitimate posting, then you need to be very careful moving forward. If there are state-level actors that are interested in your files, then every device that has been returned to you must now be considered insecure. Even components on them can have been swapped out or tampered with. Hard drive controller boards can be switched, firmwares altered, wireless capability added to drives, all in an effort to get access to those files.
VeraCrypt is indeed secure, but once someone else gets their hands on your hardware, you can never trust it again. If you desperately require files off those drives, since you already know you have a state-level adversary, there are some very specific precautions you need to take before accessing them. Remember, they still have copies of your data. All they need is your password, and they would love to watch you type that in.
I agree and will be taking extreme precautions if I ever decide I want to get the data off the drives assuming I can remember the passwords of course. Do you have any further recommendations for me to follow?
I'm very cognizent of the fact that each device is likely riddled with malware.
Assumptions:
1. They did not crack your password or keys.
2. They still want information that is on the drives.
3. The computer hardware was tampered with.
Analysis:
1. The computer hardware may have been tampered with. The HDD hardware may have been tampered with. It is likely impossible to ever know.
2. The good news is that it's unlikely that any data that was in the encrypted scope of the hard drive can have been tampered with. It's not feasible to tamper with encrypted data in a way that will make it decrypt to something meaningful. All they can do is render it unusable.
3. The other good news is that the HDD never sees the unencrypted key or password, all decryption is done in memory. This means that even if there is some sort of hardware monitoring in the drive that reading the drive is basically safe, since any hardware monitoring they may have installed can only get them what they already have obtained by cloning the drive.
4. Any software or data outside the scope of encryption for the drive is suspect. Assume the bootloader has been compromised. Assume any software outside the encryption scope is riddled with malware.
Recommendations:
1. Dispose of all non-HDD hardware summarily. Do not be tempted to keep RAM, monitors, cases, power supplies... any of it. They want your password and monitoring you to get it is the best way to get it. Dispose of it all before you even make preparations to access the HDDs
2. Purchase a new identically sized (or larger) drive to put data on for any HDD you need to retrieve data off of. Go to a retail store to do this, do not order it online.
3. Use a hardware disk cloning device like a KingWin EZClone to clone the old HDD. Once cloned, destroy the old drive. Make sure it is destroyed and its remains are far away from where you end up using the cloned drive.
4. Boot up the new computer using a freshly downloaded Live Linux CD. Do not use Windows at all if you can avoid it. Under no circumstances should you use Windows 10. Install VeraCrypt in Linux.
5. Create and mount an encrypted container to store the data. Make sure that you do not reuse the old password for this container. You will only ever type that old password in one more time, and then thereafter you will never use it again.
5. Hook up the cloned drive to the new computer, the same KingWin EZClone will act as a USB bridge if you like. Mount the cloned drive from within Linux. This is the one and only time you will ever use that password again. Make sure there are no windows where you type in that password. Make sure there are no computers, cell phones, or any other smart devices within a 100 yards of you. Make sure you are not connected to a network.
6. Copy the data that you need off the mounted cloned drive onto the newly created encrypted container.
7. Once the data is off wipe the cloned drive with random data. Unmount the destination container too.
Hypothetically speaking of course, would overwriting the bootloader on the cloned drive after cloning be beneficial at all?
Your Recommendations subsection #2 is interesting. Earlier this year I purchased a special piece of hardware online for unrelated use (it was a type of data storage device). During shipping, the device was "lost" in the mail for 3-5 days before finally arriving. Obviously I never opened or used the device.
The only reason to overwrite the bootloader would be if you intend to boot off them, which is something I would suggest you never do.
Here I meant is it beneficial hypothetically speaking to destroy the boot sector area (track 0) and overwrite it with random data before mounting in linux. I did not mean or intend to replace the current bootloader with a fresh bootloader.
very please to hear this, thank you for making this post. Please post proof of btc donation when is done to make this post even more credible .
can you please tell us if you had ssds or just hard drives?and also what country are we talking about to get an idea of their resources ?
Last edit: Andrei Matanache 2019-05-27
Previous post got blocked for some reason typing best I can remember...
The donation will appear on the public blockchain at the address published by Veracrypt on the main screen, namely 1NRoPQsm8by5iWyMMmHQy3P5takur3kYgG
There were around 10-15 hard drives, approximately equal in SSD and HDD. 100% of the SSDs had bootloaders and 100% of the HDDs did not. Two countries were involved in the decryption efforts and both are part of Five Eyes.
As much as I am confident in VeraCrypt's security (and, again, assuming this is a legitimate account), people shouldn't read too much into the notion that two Five Eyes countries had the drives. It's likely that they just weren't really motivated enough to want the data.
Let's look at this. If 100% of SSDs were boot drives, and there were 5-7 of them, that implies 5-7 computers. One would have to be naive to assume that a five eyes law enforcement and/or security service had the jurisdiction and authority to sieze 5-7 computers and couldn't have covertly observed the same computers for 24 hours prior in order to get the passwords.
They obviously didn't care enough about the contents to take any effort at preparation, which also means that it's hardly likely something they dedicated any time on "The Hammer" to. That number of computers implies approximately that number of people who know the password. Which is 5-7 people to sweat - that's enough that someone would crack.
If this is anything, it's likely something that involved low-level law enforcement. Maybe RCMP/FBI as a consultant sort of thing. Nothing they dedicated real resources to, or that they would be willing to even tp off the capalities of their real resources in order to get into.
I am not sure why you went off base with some odd assumptions. There was exactly one person who knew the passwords to all of the hard drives, me. Nobody else. There were 3 Five Eyes agencies directly involved and they were all federal, but only two were involved with the encrypted drives according to documents.
The investigation according to documents was rated "High Priority" and "Tier 1" by the Director of National Security in my country.
The agency attempted to conduct covert surveillance of me prior to executing search warrants according to other documents and warrants. I detected their undercover operation at the time.
Nobody had any ability to observe the computers before executing the warrants because they were stored in a residential unit (mine) in a high rise building many floors above ground and telescope level. No other units in any other buildings could see inside. Furthermore, there was no way for them to gain covert access to the unit because I had a camera pointed at the only entrance door to alert me of any unauthorized entry by thieves. The computers were always powered down when not directly in use because hey, who wants to pay for electricity you're not using!
What I was investigated for is irrelevant. All that matters for the purposes of this forum is that they tried their best to gain access and could not do so. They have and used backdoors into other technologies but that's a discussion for another time.
The donation from my friend was sent, https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NRoPQsm8by5iWyMMmHQy3P5takur3kYgG
To be clear, it's not my coins or donation it is a friend who knows the full details and is impressed. It should show up tomorrow I'm told.
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NRoPQsm8by5iWyMMmHQy3P5takur3kYgG
Someone was certainly grateful. 1.15 BTC. That's just north of $10kUSD today.
I based my statements on what you've said: 5-7 bootable drives implies 5-7 computers. Not many people have that many computers at home.
No offense, but if they'd wanted eyes on, they would have had eyes on.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. My comments aren't really even aimed at you. They are aimed at the one or two hundred other people who will read this thread in the days, weeks, and months ahead. I want them to know they should not read too much into this report. I am not disparaging VeraCrypt's security. Just the opposite. I am quite satisfied as to its security (though I recommend no one trust AES by itself). But that confidence doesn't come from anecdotes like this, and this is not where people should get their warm and fuzzies about VeraCrypt from either. For all any of us know, some agency has just found a weakness and wants us to think VeraCrypt is 100% secure. Think of it from that point of view. If CSE/CSIS or NSA fully broke AES what is the first thing I'd want to make sure of? I'd want to make sure to reassure everyone that it's perfectly safe because I don't want them switching. I'd make sweeping statements that "VeraCrypt" is secure because I know that AES is its default cipher.
VeraCrypt isn't a black box. It's not something that, in its entirety, is either secure or not. It is an implementation of quite a few cryptographic functions and primitives. People need to research the ciphers and hashes it uses and decide based on evidence, trends in each algorithm's security margin, and their own desired safety margins what is the best way to secure their data. No one should just trust VeraCrypt blindly, not even you who have the most proof of its usefulness. No one should trust any one cipher or hash used in VeraCrypt blindly. People who make sweeping statements that "VeraCrypt is secure" or that "VeraCrypt has no backdoors" do that kind of research and evidence-based decision making a disservice. It just encourages people to blindly trust the name "VeraCrypt".
Now, I am pretty sure everyone would love to thank your friend for the donation. I certainly do. Thank-you! Thanks to your friend! I am glad that VeraCrypt worked for you both. I hope the funding helps to make VeraCrypt even better. I just want to make it clear to people that this sort of anecdote is not what they should base security decisions on. And people shouldn't necessarily just trust the default settings. They need to make informed decisions.
I hope that makes sense.
Thanks again. :)
Fair enough. I didn't specify what encryption methods I used or what the strength of the passwords were just that they couldn't gain access.
This post will be helpful to direct users to use Veracrypt vs something like Bitlocker and others may find comfort in having a court case where specific software they use was battle tested against national law enforcement agencies. Their internal emails to each other and court sworn affidavits expressed frustration at being unable to view my private files and I enjoyed reading every single one of them.
all respect to you and your friend for donating to this really good project, the developers really deserve it. Hopefully they are now motivated to improve the program even more. I hope they start fixing the nvme ssd speed problems
Thank You @idrassi