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Author Topic: IDEA: multi-stage password  (Read 3068 times)

bit

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IDEA: multi-stage password
« on: March 07, 2014, 02:54 PM »
Normally, you engage an encryption program like TrueCrypt or ScramDisk, and you type in 'one' password or passphrase.
This proposes what might be termed a 'shell program' or 'front end', that sets up either one of two things;
1) that two or more copies of TrueCrypt, ScramDisk, or whatever, open side by side in 'parallel',
2) that two or more copies of TrueCrypt, ScramDisk, or whatever, open one after another in 'series'.

Thus, you start 'shell', and it automatically opens one copy of TrueCrypt, and you type in a passphrase.
TrueCrypt, operating in 'shell mode', receives the first password, unlocks, and reports back to 'shell'.
'Shell' thereupon opens number 2 copy of TrueCrypt, and you enter a second password.
TrueCrypt #2 unlocks, and reports back to 'shell'.
'Shell' confirms sequential entry of passwords, and unlocks.

The above is a clumsily worded description.
The idea is, you combine multiple instances of TrueCrypt, ScramDisk, or whatever, into a Multi-encryption shell-unit, unifying them into something that basically requires multiple passwords to unlock.

Thus, complexity is compounded, but unlocking is simplified by x-units of passwords entered either in parallel or series mode.

« Last Edit: March 08, 2014, 02:42 PM by bit »

bit

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Re: IDEA: multi-stage password
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2014, 02:42 PM »
I suppose my idea may have been a bit over simplistic.
Perhaps the encryption is so bound up in the TrueCrypt or ScramDisk type software that it cannot be co-opted by a shell or front end program.
The idea was, what if you could start the shell, and use it to enter multiple up to 64-character passwords before opening a file?

That's not quite like having a container within a container, which limits you to sequential or serial 64-digit passwords.
I've read how someone set up a case with multiple video cards to crack longer passwords.
So I thought to myself, what if you had to enter two or three 64-digit passwords before anything unlocks?
And to do that, what if your shell program could just run two or three copies of TrueCrypt, and sort of dialogue with them all at once?
So that, in what I'm thinking, you would need two or three 64-digit passwords set up in advance before anything is opened at all.
But perhaps I'm not perceiving the true nature of the encryption software in the first place, and maybe it just doesn't work that way.