DriveCrypt is a 1344 Bit disk encryption software using cryptographic algorithms such as AES, Blowfish or Tea 32 that can encrypt partitions, entire hard drives (with the exception of the boot drive) and USB devices. Besides that it can also create encrypted containers on storage devices so that only part of the space is reserved for the encrypted data.

DriveCrypt makes use of on-the-fly decryption to ensure that only the data that is currently needed resides in the computer’s memory to minimize the risk if someone would record and analyse the data in memory.

DriveCrypt is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. Installation is flawless as is the setup of the encrypted storage space. The software starts in simple mode which reduces the elements on the screen to a bare minimum. Experienced users can switch to the advanced mode which is providing them with more options in the interface.

The Simple Mode basically consists of four buttons which are used to create and manage data safes. It is possible to create a new safe, load an existing safe, dismount all safes or to scan for safes on the computer system.

There are usually no safes after the installation and it is up to the user to create the first encrypted safe. It is necessary to define a few parameters like the size of the container and the password but basically anything else including the algorithm is selected by the software program. It is possible to use a normal password or one that spans across four lines to increase security.

The advanced mode provides all the missing options for experienced users. They can select the file system and the encryption algorithm. The ability to create a encrypted partition is only available in the advanced mode like several other options:

• Invisible Containers: Create hidden containers in encrypted containers.
• Hide Data In Music Files: Add data to music files
• Hot Disk Encryption: Encrypt removable devices and make the data inaccessible once their are unplugged from the computer system.
• Password Security: Master Password for administrators, Restricted second user Passwords
  and Second user Password Expiration
• Password Sniffing Protection: protects against password sniffers like trojans or keyloggers.
• Anti Dictionary or Brute Force Attack mechanism: Slows down brute force attacks.
• Disk Wiping: DriveCrypt is able to delete the free space on a storage device so that the data is not recoverable.
• External Hardware Support: Works with fingerprint and smartcard readers, as well as USB token
• Works on any Storage Medium: Works on hard drives, removable devices including CDs and DVDs, basically anything that can be used to store data.

DriveCrypt offers an easy way to create encrypted containers for data on their storage devices. You can win one out of 50 licenses for DriveCrypt by writing a comment below.

The solution is a little bit complicated because you have to compile a source to get it to work. The benefit however is a much better performance of that algorithm which has been programmed in Assembler in comparison to the one programmed in C that True Crypt is using by default.

The increase is amazing. The bandwidth increases by about 20 MB/s from 66 MB/s to 85 MB/s on the system of the user who discovered it. It depends on the hard drive of course but everyone should see a gain in the end.

You will need the following to compile the algorithm source and True Crypt:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 with SP1
• Microsoft Visual C++ 1.52
• Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK) Vista Build 6000
• YASM

You can read the full instructions in this thread. I was not able to locate a precompiled version of True Crypt with this faster AES algorithm yet. If anyone comes up with a trustworthy download source let me know. I unfortunately do not have Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

What they did was to boot the computer from an USB drive that would load a RAM dumping program. Tests conducted by the University of Princeton showed that it took between seconds and minutes before data that was stored in RAM was completely erased. The RAM also vanished in a predictable manner.

It’s interesting to see that cooling the RAM down to minus 50 degrees prolonged the time the data was readable, it was clearly readable after ten minutes. It’s a very interesting video in my opinion.

If you never thought about using a BIOS password and disabling booting from USB devices and CD / DVD before you should start thinking about it right now. That is if you use disk encryption.

True Crypt is available for Linux and several Windows editions including Vista and XP. Please download the software from the location above and install it afterwards. The only other thing that you need is some free space on a hard drive or a storage device. I would suggest an usb key for instance, size does not really matter that much. If you ask me I encrypted a complete external hard drive with 320 Gigabytes of space that stores my private files that no one else should be able to access.

• Launch True Crypt
• Click on Create Volume
• Create a Standard Volume, click Next
• Decide if you want to encrypt a device or create a encrypted container. Select File creates an container of x megabytes that you specify, select device encrypts the device. I’m using the second option for my hard drive but this is really up to you and does not change the data safe that we create
• If you select File: Browse to a location that you want to store the file and name it, something like test, data or whatever. Click save, then next.
• Select an encryption algorithm, AES is fine for instance. Click Next
• Select a file size for the container. It should be at least some megabytes, the limit is the space on the device that the file is created on
• Create a secure password that you can remember. Write it down for the first time if you want to be sure that you do not forget it. Get rid of that paper as soon as possible.
• Click on Next, move the mouse around for a minimum of 30 seconds and click on format afterwards.
• A message should appear that the container was created.
• To mount it simply select a drive letter that is not taken and click on Select File and browse to the file that you created
• click on mount and enter the password that you have selected during installation
• If everything worked out fine the container should be mounted and you can use it like any other drive letter.You could for instance move important files into the container or create a textfile that contains all of your passwords.
• do not forget to unmount the partition if you leave the computer for a longer time. Booting or shutting down automatically unmounts the drive.
• It would be nearly the same process if you want to encrypt a whole partition or drive.
• Instead of selecting a file at the beginning you select the drive letter of that partition and follow the same menus as before.
• Mounting it is similar as well, you only click on Select Devices instead of Select File before you click on mount

So, where are the advantages of this method over tools that work like password safes ? The main advantage is that you can not only store passwords in the encrypted container but also files and everything else that you can think off. Just move the files inside and no one can access them unless they can provide the password to this True Crypt container.

As I said earlier True Crypt works with big hard drives and there is no visible loss in speed during read and write operations. The devices work as usual once mounted. You could for instance run your favorite torrent client from that drive saving those torrents on it as well.

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