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In an update to the speculation that TrueCrypt development was officially discontinued as a response to efforts by US intelligence agencies to compromise the project, the TrueCrypt web site seems to contain a secret message warning potential users of NSA interference in the integrity of the software. The apparent message, "Don't use TrueCrypt because it is under the control of the NSA" is read as an acrostic in Latin, contained in the message announcing developer cessation of the project on SouceForge. Two independent analytical exercises, conducted independently, arrive at the same conclusion. User "Badon" at the Live Business Chat message board has a detailed exegesis including screenshots and footnotes.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I have cross checked this on some Latin specific sites, and the consensus seems to be that it is nonsensical from a perspective of proper Latin grammar and syntax. However, Google Translation does reproduce these results. I can certainly believe that a warning might have been composed using G.T. rather than by consulting a classicist. --ED]
(Score: 4, Informative) by elf on Tuesday June 17 2014, @12:52PM
This reminds me of the Bible Code!
A couple of things here
1) The developers are anonymous, no one knows who they are. If the NSA does know who they and they are under their control then they would have to be American citizens. The NSA has no jurisdiction on and people not being in the US. If they got a letter they could just publish it and not worry about prosecution.
2) As many people have said before, the code being open source, is open for anyone to view and see changes over time. If, the developers were American, and received a letter from the NSA then the mostly like reason for them leaving is not because there is a back door already there but because they were asked to put a back door in going forwards. I don't know how much of the code history has been preserved since it was all shut down (I know a code version is available now but I don't know if you can look at previous code versions still) but if it is then a clear picture will be made available when the 2nd part of the code review is finished.
It looks like there are a few efforts to get forks of the project up and away. I know the open source license was quite restrictive, but with out anyone stepping forward to make a claim of breaching the license it will be hard to prosecute anyone for forking. (IANAL so just a personal guess). Even if someone did it will be hard to prove you were actually the owners of the code in the first place.
(Score: 2) by d on Tuesday June 17 2014, @01:02PM
You assume that they obey the law. If they don't, the NSA devs might as well be foreigners.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday June 17 2014, @11:22PM
They don't have to be US citizens, they could be citizens of any country under Five Eyes [wikipedia.org] or have family under five eyes which pressure can be placed upon. Remember its REALLY not hard for a government to put pressure on somebody these days, hell all they would have to do is say they are gonna grab your relative and charge them with CP. It won't matter if its true or not, the case will take a couple years to wind through the courts and CP cases have a better than 95% conviction rate because juries just hear the word and are ready to convict. you really gonna let uncle Howard do 60 years comrade, or are you gonna put out this "new version" with a backdoor and hand us the keys?
Lets face it we ALL know what happened and involves the words NSA. Funny that we defeated fascism in WWII only for the country to slowly sink into a fascist oligarchy.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.