Disk encryption solution for both Windows and Linux

Message

ddaas · Post by **ddaas** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 12:57 pm

Hi there,
I have a new 2 GB USB stick with lots of personal information, backups, encryption key-pairs etc.
I am afraid that some day it could be stolen and lost.

I am interested in a encryption solution (something like dm-cryption or aes-loop on linux) which is compatible on both linux and windows (I use both of them frequently). On-the-fly encryption would be great and should be easy use. I am interested especially in something under GPL license.
Does anyone know/use such a tool?

Thanks

ddaas · Post by **ddaas** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:21 pm

I found something. If anyone needs it:

http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php

davidblewett · Post by **davidblewett** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:48 pm

FreeOTFE (http://www.freeotfe.org) can mount linux aes-loopback volumes in Windows.

ddaas · Post by **ddaas** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:47 pm

aes-loopback is already obsolete. dm-crypt with luks will be nice

davidblewett · Post by **davidblewett** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:49 pm

I never used it to mount linux volumes, but this is from it's website:

Linux compatibility (Cryptoloop "losetup", dm-crypt and LUKS supported)

casso · Post by **casso** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:14 am

I am currently using loop-aes to encrypt a JFS partition for use under both Windows and Linux.

Loop-AES does have its overhead to make sure everything is encrypted when it comes to Linux. I believe the same holds true if you want to make all your linux partitions encrypted using dm-crypt.

My solution to accessing the partitions under Windows is to use CoLinux. While it makes for a more complex system, it was the only system at the time I knew of that was free and could handle both loop-aes and JFS (with a modified kernel). I currently have more reason to use CoLinux than just to access these partitions; I need to be able to access wireless networking under Linux to perform system updates, but I don't know enough yet for the particular network.

In short, using CoLinux will work if you get stuck. I have not yet heard of these other tools, but I will be looking right now. Should you get stuck with these, or have some other system that linux-2.6.11 is able to use but these tools won't, then you have the option of CoLinux. The mention of the version of the kernel is because CoLinux requires a specific kernel version for each release, built with the correct version of gcc (gcc-3.4.x at the time of this post).

Good luck if you are still stuck. I suggest you find the easiest solution ot your problem, which might not be the one I have suggested.

davidblewett · Post by **davidblewett** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:45 pm

FreeOTFE doesn't do any filesystem-level tasks. It just handles the encryption side. In other words, only filesystems that Windows recognizes can be used. I believe someone wrote a filesystem driver for ext2 and reiserfs. Everything else won't work in Windows, AFAIK.

ddaas · Post by **ddaas** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 8:32 am

I am pleased with http://www.truecrypt.org/
It works under Linux and Windows, performs on-the-fly encryption has a lot of features ....
It is exactly what need for my usb stick.

I will also try FreeOTFE and CoLinux to see how they work.

Thanks