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One important thing this analysis points out: using a truecrypt volume (ie: a USB stick) on a non-truecrypt system is dangerous.



Right.

This would emphasize the need to always be cautious in your use of cryptosystems, since you cannot simply claim "oh my data is Truecrypt'd". That will not save you from everything by itself. But if you look into the documentation, Truecrypt itself warns you about using it, and the threat model is very careful in defining what steps you need to take to adequately protect your data with Truecrypt.

It's one of those things where for most people, just a file-volume (the simplest kind where it's just a file that can be mounted as a block device), will do fine. The write-to-disk wouldn't happen very often, and to lose your data to a thief would require both the unlikely "OS dumped the memory to disk" (meaning the OS doesn't respect the flags TC puts on that memory), AND on top of that "a thief stole your laptop/desktop/external". If your adversary is organized crime, a law enforcement agency, or some other state-like actor with heavy-duty resources and specifically wants y-o-u... Then you'll need to be very careful and use a full disk encryption solution, or rather just not use a computer.

Know your tools. Know your adversary. Sleep a little easier knowing both. Or turn paranoid.




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