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TrueCrypt is Now Abandonware?!

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mwb1100:
Another problem with that scenario is that while Vista and later support BitLocker, not all editions of Windows support it. You need to have Ultimate or Enterprise (or Pro on Win8). Home, Home Premium, or Pro (on Vista or Win7)  won't cut it.  And that's putting aside the trust issues that people might have with BitLocker.

It's certainly possible that the devs (I thought there were 2 or 3) don't want to work on the project anymore and might not think it's as important as it once was.  But it would be a pretty mean thing to remove people's ability to continue to choose to use the encryption capabilities as they existed in 7.1a just because there are alternatives out there. Then again, they weren't being paid by the users (or if they are, it's donations only), so other than by way of goodwill, there's no reason to expect that the devs should provide anything.

I wouldn't be too surprised if the devs simply resent that the audit effort got a rather large funding pretty quickly (I think that it's possible that the $70K crowdfunded for the audit might be more than the TrueCrypt project received in donations), and decided to pack it in as a result.

Stoic Joker:
Another problem with that scenario is that while Vista and later support BitLocker, not all editions of Windows support it. You need to have Ultimate or Enterprise (or Pro on Win8). Home, Home Premium, or Pro (on Vista or Win7)  won't cut it.  And that's putting aside the trust issues that people might have with BitLocker.-mwb1100 (May 30, 2014, 04:02 AM)
--- End quote ---

That's a really big (like $200) sticking point to contend with. Especially when coupled with the fact that BitLocker requires the existence of a system partition and a TPM chip or thumb drive "key" to implement, so it's really - a bit of a PITA - not a 2 click fix.

rgdot:
How many used TC for whole disk encryption vs containers? In the case of the latter, which I guess had more users, Bitlocker is not even an alternative.

phitsc:
If a crowd-funded security audit of your FOSS project doesn't convince you that there is a tremendous interest in your project, I don't know what will.

Also, bitlocker cannot replace TrueCrypt, as bitlocker is not cross-platform.

And then, why no encouragement for someone to fork, if they see a need for the tool?

Even for someone not usually into conspiracy theories this sounds rather fishy.

40hz:
I'm guessing somebody hired them. Hence the abrupt cessation with no advance warning or details given.  

Forking in the usual sense isn't possible. Truecrypt has its own somewhat ambiguous license which is most assuredly not written in the spirit of the GPL. The FSF has disputed TC's characterization of itself as a "free open source" project for some time now. And with the recent news it's been noted that the license has also been changed so that all "attribution" language has been removed. Since that language also spoke of derivative works, the right to do derivatives or incorporate TC into another product (in exchange for attribution to TC) also appears to no longer apply - hence: no fork. Legal opinion seems to concur that TC's code cannot be forked or incorporated in something else under the current licensing language.  

Expect a commercial product release in the near future.

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