Open source has been in the media for quite some time whether directly or indirectly. With ACTA leak and the ASCAP letter two big news items that affects open source, we decided to sit down with the Free Software Foundation and talk about these and other things related to the open source movement. There are [...]

This tutorial was originally posted by 4nd, (a member) at Suprbay forums, and can be read here.

Please read the First Part to this Tutorial before proceeding.

Maximum Security Using TrueCrypt

You possess files that are highly illegal, or that could get you in big trouble just for possessing. You believe that someone may try to break into your TrueCrypt volume in order to access your secret files. This someone may be an individual hacker or a group of them, possibly under the employ of a rival company (if you have company secrets, of course). Alternately, this someone could be working for the government. Whoever the attacker is, it’s imperative that you keep them out. That’s where hidden volumes come in.

What is a hidden volume?

Think of it like this:

• First, TrueCrypt creates Overall Volume A, which is 1 GB. This is separated into two parts: Visible Volume B (800 MB) and Hidden Volume C (200 MB).
• Visible Volume B and Hidden Volume C have different passwords. Depending on which password is used to mount Overall Volume A, either Visible Volume B or Hidden Volume C will be mounted.
• Because of the nature of TrueCrypt volumes, proving the existence of Hidden Volume C, even if one is aware of Overall Volume A and Visible Volume B, is extremely hard if not possible.
• You, the user, puts 800 MB of fairly incriminating files in Visible Volume B, such as porn. You put 200 MB of really incriminating stuff in Hidden Volume C. If someone forces you to give up the password for your TrueCrypt volume, you tell them the password to Visible Volume B. They see the porn and think that’s all you have. Since they can’t prove Hidden Volume C’s existence, your data is protected. You have what is called plausible deniability.
• Even if you don’t fill the volume with your porn/incriminating files, because of the nature of TrueCrypt volumes, it still looks completely full.

Creating a hidden volume follows a similar procedure as creating a normal volume. Start TrueCrypt and hit Create Volume.

To begin, first select “Create an encrypted file container”

Now select “Hidden TrueCrypt volume” and hit Next.

Select the location of the volume. You can overwrite an existing file (thus destroying it, so be careful!) or create your own. Example: C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\My Documents\truecrypt_volume

Choose your encryption algorithm.

Choose the size of the overall volume.

Choose a password for the volume.

Uncheck the “Show” box and move your mouse around the screen as randomly as possible. After a satisfactory amount of time (at least a minute), hit Format.

Now the wizard will tell you to add files to the storage volume. Use this opportunity to add files that you want people to think are the reason you have the TrueCrypt volume; porn, pirated movies, plots to take over the world, whatever. You have to add at least one file before moving on.

Once you finish adding files, TrueCrypt will scan the volume to see how much space is left. Hit Next.

Now you can select the encryption algorithm for the hidden volume, which need not be the same as for the outer volume.

Select the size of your hidden volume, which is the overall volume’s size minus the total size of those files you added. The maximum size is displayed for you.

Choose a password for the inner volume. This password must be different (preferably significantly different) from the password you used for the overall volume. As before, follow the guidelines listed above, or in the TrueCrypt wizard window, for creating a good password.

Choose a file system for the hidden volume.

Now, as before, generate the cryptographic key for the hidden volume by moving your mouse around the window for a little while. Uncheck “Show” if you like. When you’re done, hit Format.

TrueCrypt will give you a popup when complete notifying you that it’s done, along with providing some helpful information and a warning about hidden volumes.

You’re done! Skip below to learn how to use your new file system.

How to Use Your TrueCrypt Volume

Here’s a pic of TrueCrypt’s interface.

To mount and decrypt a storage volume:

* Highlight an empty slot
* Press “Select File…” and navigate to your TrueCrypt volume.
* Hit Mount.

TrueCrypt will ask for the volume’s password.

* If you created a hidden volume: Enter the outer volume’s password to mount the volume with your “dummy” files. Enter the hidden volume’s password to mount the hidden volume, with your real sensitive data.

TrueCrypt will decrypt your volume and mount it as though it were, say, a flash drive. Windows users can go to My Computer and double-click on the “truecrypt1″ device to access their mounted volume, or just double-click on the mounted volume in the TrueCrypt window. Linux users: TrueCrypt mounts the volume in /media/ but you can also just use the TrueCrypt window to access the volume.

Use your file browser to add, remove, or run/display files that you keep in your storage volume. Leave TrueCrypt running while doing so.

When you’re finished, right-click the volume and hit Dismount (alternately, hit Dismount All at the bottom) and then click Exit. Make sure you dismount the volumes before exiting TrueCrypt!

Additional Reading on TrueCrypt

• While TrueCrypt is a very good application, it is not perfect. Its Wikipedia entry details a few vulnerabilities that someone can use to get to your protected data. Most of these vulnerabilities, however, either require physical access to your computer, or simply point to possible TrueCrypt volumes (but doesn’t decrypt them).
• The TrueCrypt FAQ answers some common questions about TrueCrypt and provides some helpful extra info.
• It’s worth pointing out that in addition to creating volumes that appear to be files, TrueCrypt can encrypt entire partitions of storage devices, such as hard drives and flash drives. It can even create hidden volumes within these partitions. The FAQ has more information on that.
• Furthermore, if you run Windows, TrueCrypt can be used to encrypt your entire operating system. Again, consult the FAQ.

Special Thanks

A big special thanks to 4nd at Suprbay forums for writing this fantastic tutorial!

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This tutorial was originally posted by 4nd, (a member) at Suprbay forums, and can be read here.

Using TrueCrypt to Protect Sensitive Files

Do you have incriminating or otherwise sensitive files that you want to keep secret? Perhaps you merely have a porn collection on a shared computer that you need to keep secret from the rest of the family. On the other hand, perhaps you possess files that, depending on your country of residence, could get you arrested and jailed simply for having them. Whatever your specific needs are, encrypting your data so that only you can read it goes a long way towards protecting your privacy. In this hopefully noob-friendly tutorial, I’ll describe how to use a program called TrueCrypt to protect your sensitive files.

What is TrueCrypt?

TrueCrypt is an open-source, cross-platform program that allows you to create protected storage volumes, in which you can safely keep your secret files. It’s important to understand that TrueCrypt does not selectively encrypt files; rather, it creates a sort of encrypted folder that protects anything in it. This folder, known as a storage volume, must be mounted with TrueCrypt and requires a password to be accessed.

I know that there are plenty of different applications for selectively encrypting single files, which vary from platform to platform. So why did I choose TrueCrypt? Because:

• TrueCrypt is open source. Matters of computer security are best left up to software in which it is an established fact that there are no backdoors, significant vulnerabilities, etc.
• Consequently, TrueCrypt is free to download and use.
• TrueCrypt is cross-platform. It runs on Windows, OS X and Linux.
• If you choose the maximum security options, TrueCrypt is exceptionally good at not only protecting the files you want to keep secret, but hiding their very existence. Even with “weaker” security settings, TrueCrypt is great for protecting your files.

Step 1: Get it!

Download the TrueCrypt installer for your operating system. Run it. While I only have experience with the Linux version of the installer, I assume that the installers for other systems are as relatively painless as the Linux version. Install TrueCrypt and open it.

Now it’s time to create an encrypted storage container. Run TrueCrypt and hit “Create Volume.” I have spoiler’d the following sections because they’re quite large, and contain screenshots of the volume creation process (y’know, for noob friendliness).

Setup: Moderate Security

Note, Maximum Security section is located on the next page.

If you want to keep your porn stash safe from your parents, this is your section. Additionally, you can use this method if you have a reasonable belief that nobody with serious hacking skill is going to try to get at your private data. If, however, your information is inappropriate or illegal enough to get you prosecuted simply for possessing it, you may want to play it safe and skip to the I want Maximum Security Tutorial. Otherwise, read on.

In the TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard, select “Create an encrypted file container.”

Select “Standard TrueCrypt volume.”

In this screen you select the location of the storage container. You don’t have to have a pre-existing file for this step. For example, if you’re on Windows XP, you can put “C:\Documents and Settings\yourusernamehere\My Documents\truecrypt_volume” into the Select File dialog and TrueCrypt will create a file in your My Documents folder. This file will be your storage container.

If you wish to use a different cryptographic algorithm than AES, you can select it here. If you don’t, leave these options the way they are and hit Next.

Here you determine the size of your storage volume. Obviously this sets the limit for how much you can store; if you make your volume 500 MB, you won’t be able to fit a 700 MB movie rip in it. Remember: The larger the volume is, the more difficult it will be to move between devices (separate computers, flash drives, etc), but the more you can store in it.

Enter the password you will use to decrypt the volume. You want to make sure this is a fairly strong password. While there are guides all over the Internet for creating a good password, I’ll list a few tips:

• Try to base your password off something that you, and only you, would know.
• Don’t just make it a single word. Multiple words are better, though inserting some misspellings, numbers instead of letters, or random punctuation characters helps thwart dictionary attacks (where someone runs a program that tries all the words in the dictionary in order to guess your password).
• Don’t use a password that you’re using for something else (such as your user account on the computer, or your email password). Create an entirely new one.
• Do not forget this password. If you do, you’re screwed if you want to access your protected files.

Choose your file system here. If you don’t know what this means, or if you don’t care about the specific file system being used, hit Next.

Spend about a minute or so moving your mouse as randomly as possible within this window. TrueCrypt uses this method to determine how strong the cryptographic key is. The longer you move your mouse, the stronger the key. When you’re finished, hit Format and then wait. TrueCrypt will create the storage volume in the location you specified and notify you when it’s complete. Depending on the size of the volume you specified, and how strong the key is (how long you moved your mouse in this window), it might take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.

You’re done! Hit Exit in the next screen. Now you’re ready to start adding files to your protected storage volume.

Part 2 – Maximum Security Using TrueCrypt

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How to: run uTorrent in Linux

Here’s a brief tutorial that was requested in our forum. uTorrent is a very lightweight and easy to use bittorrent client, that unfortunately is unmatched by some of the Linux clients out there today. You can still have functioning WebUI and Automated RSS Downloading with uTorrent running in Ubuntu Linux, so if let’s get started!

Install Wine (Windows Emulator) in Ubuntu Linux

Wine is an open source software that allows you to run Windows software under different operating systems. With Wine you can run Windows software applications in Linux similar to how you would run them in Windows.

Provided you are running Ubuntu Linux; Open up a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install wine

This will install Wine from Ubuntu’s software repositories along with all of the packages required to run it.

Download uTorrent (uTorrent.exe)

Since installing Wine in Ubuntu Linux may take a few minutes, in the meantime you can grab a copy of uTorrent (for windows), I’d recommend a stable release, (at the time of writing this the newest stable release is 2.0).

Open up another terminal and enter the following commands:

cd ~

This should bring you to your home directory (if you aren’t already there).

sudo mkdir utorrrent

This creates a /utorrent/ directory

cd utorrent

Change into the uTorrent directory

sudo wget http://download.utorrent.com/2.0/utorrent.exe

This begins downloads the utorrent.exe file into the new directory you just created, you should see the progress bar on the download.

Run uTorrent using Wine under Linux

By now Wine should be fully installed, we’re going to create a launcher and then run uTorrent using it. On your desktop right click and goto Create Launcher…

A new window will popup asking you to fill in the details for your new launcher, fill in the fields as follows:

Type: Application
Name: uTorrent
Command: wine “/home/USERNAME/utorrent/utorrent.exe /NOINSTALL”

** NOTE **
Where it says USERNAME fill in your Linux username!
Where it says /NOINSTALL is because you don’t want to install uTorrent in Linux, you don’t need to! It still saves your settings

And that’s it! You should now have a new launcher for uTorrent on your desktop!

Need a uTorrent Icon for Your Shortcut?

Yep, we think of everything open up a Terminal again and jump to your ~/utorrent/ directory:

cd ~/utorrent

And download this image:

sudo wget http://tipst3r.com/download_images/utorrent_icon.png

Next just goto Properties for the Launcher shortcut you made and click on the current icon, and browse your way to the utorrent_icon.png and use this as your new icon.

Now it looks all pretty on your desktop.

Follow-up Configurations: Beef up your new uTorrent Linux Install!

Learn how to setup uTorrent WebUI and access your Torrents Anywhere!
Learn how to setup Automated RSS Downloading

Well here’s the first version of our helpful software list for all of our fans. We assume this list is never complete as new software is always being developed and distributed. If you have any programs you think should be on this list, don’t hesitate to leave a comment at the bottom of this post, or in our forum — and we’ll try and included it in our next revision.

This article does not cover bittorrent clients.

For a list of bittorrent clients we recommend please visit our Clients page.

Must Have Software

Software that you will basically always need if you’re frequently torrenting.

SOFTWARE	DESCRIPTION
WinRAR (For Windows/Linux/Mac OSX Users)	WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. Paid license required.
AVG Antivirus	Free Antivirus solution for Home Windows users. AVG provides free automatic updates to home users as well, and is very easy to use and configure. Definitely recommended for anyone without anti-virus software. Home version is free.
VLC Media Player (Windows/Linux)	VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac … and more.) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Free open source software.

CD / DVD Authoring

There are many options, naturally we prefer free, open source software, but we will also list some software that has to be paid for in order fully utilize.

SOFTWARE	DESCRIPTION
ImgBurn (Windows)	ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application (34 languages), that everyone should have in their toolkit. ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats. It can burn Audio CDs from any file type supported via DirectShow / ACM. You can use it to build DVD Video discs, HD DVD Video discs and Blu-ray Video discs with ease. Freely distributed software.
Nero Burning ROM (Windows/Linux)	Nero Burning ROM, commonly called just Nero, is an optical disc authoring program. As of version 6, the program has been a part of Nero software suite. It features new cutting-edge functionality that makes enjoying digital media content simple. Create, rip, copy, burn, edit, share, and upload online. Whatever you want – music, video, photo, and data – share with family and friends anytime, anywhere. Paid license required.
Ashampoo Burning Studio (Windows)	Ashampoo Burning Studio is different. It’s compact, fast and amazingly easy to use. You just choose from a list of tasks and the software guides you through every step. And even though it has all the functions you would expect from a complete burning suite, the entire software takes up less than 85 megabytes on your hard disk. Freely distributed software.
CDBurnerXP (Windows)	CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Freely distributed software.

ISO Emulation

Software to help you emulate ISO images from your hard disk instead of burning them!

SOFTWARE	DESCRIPTION
Daemon Tools (Windows)	With DAEMON Tools you can back up your physical CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray discs into “virtual discs” or so called “disc image” files, which run directly on your hard drive. You can also work with images created by other burning programs! DAEMON Tools supports variety of image types. Use CD/DVD image converter to have one format images in your Image Catalog! Paid license required
WinCDEmu (Windows)	WinCDEmu is an open-source software that allows mounting CD/DVD images by clicking at the image files in Windows Explorer. It supports both Windows XP and Vista, is open-source and completely freeware. Version 2.0 supports ISO, CUE, BIN/RAW/IMG file formats as well as SMB network shares. Free open source software.
Slysoft Virtual Clonedrive (Windows)	Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive. Paid license required

Codec Packs

Codec’s help you play media files that have been encoded, sometimes finding a specific codec can be a pain, so we recommend installing one of these codec packs which should contain all the codecs you’ll ever require.

CODEC PACK	DESCRIPTION
CCCP – Combined Community Codec Pack	The Combined Community Codec Pack is a simple playback pack for Windows with the goal of supporting the majority of video formats in use today. Freely distributed.
VLC Media Player	VLC Media player comes packaged with many codecs for playing pretty much all encoded media you’ll come across online. Free open source software.
All in one Media Coded Pack	All in One Media Codec Pack includes codecs, splitter and filters for most video and music formats. You will get complete media support for your entertainment needs after installation. Coverage for video formats includes MP4, AVI, MKV, OGM, MPG, MPEG, VOB, FLV, MOV (Quicktime), RM(RealMedia), 3GP, DivX; audio format includes MP3, AC3, AAC, DTS, WAV, FLAC, and Vorbis. Advanced users will find GSpot, Media Player Classic come in handy. Freely distributed software.