Hello all! Name's Logan and this will be my first post in the forums, sadly i wish the topic could be a blunder of mine instead.. I was wondering if i could kindly seek out advice on how i should proceed with some drives left to me by my departed brother. They are encrypted with TrueCrypt and i have neither a clue of password or keyfiles. Is there any possibility in the present to have them decrypted or keep hopes for perhaps in the future? Or should i consider the files lost and make use of the drives? Thank you. Sincerly, Logan.
True, and OP could save them. But there's also the question of respecting dead brother's wishes. And said brother apparently didn't leave passwords and keys.
I agree with @mirimir. There is a reason your brother encrypted his data; he doesn't want anyone access his data. And i don't think you can decrypt it anyway.
Save them. Technically, TrueCrypt (and any encryption mechanism) will be easily defeated by quantum computing in the near future. But as the above posts mentioned, respecting your bother's decision not to reveal his data might be the best to do.
Many owners encrypt their data to protect it from others generally, while also wanting at least some of it available to selected people if/when something happens to the owner. There is a "if they wanted you to access it they would have given you what you need to access it" argument here. However, some people... especially those who are younger/healthier and not expecting something bad to happen to them... don't properly prepare even though they want to. Also, some people pseudo-hide things with the intention that they only be found by a loved one carefully going through their things after they pass on. IOW: it is hard to know what was intended and those closest to the departed would be in the best position to know. A reminder, to each of us, to get our own affairs in order and discuss things with the appropriate people.
Thank you all for your replies and advice, you have given me me some more insight in how to handle the matter. Me and my brother were very close and i doubt he would mind me sifting through his drives even though he might have a private section i would of course respect and leave it alone. I were more interested in seeing if i could save his projects, photos and such. Luckily he had some saved without encryption. He died suddenly, and we never even had the thoughts on sharing passwords since I myself also keep my drives encrypted.. As TheWindBringeth says, "A reminder, to each of us, to get our own affairs in order and discuss things with the appropriate people."
Go ahead, bring your Quantum Computer If it takes 4 trillion centuries to crack a password today, it will "only" take 2 trillion centuries with the QC.
There might be a couple of possibilities, it depends on the value of the data to you, and whether or not you assess you might have insider knowledge over what he might choose as a password, or whether he would have gone for something strong and random. Some people do write down their passwords - maybe hidden in some printed material or whatever, and someone might come across it, because for full disk encryption, you need long strong passwords, because they are more exposed to offline hacking by software tools. It's also possible someone might know his other online passwords, in which case they might have been the basis for the Truecrypt one. If you are still able to access his online accounts, you might be able to recover some of the information (for example, if he backed up the photos to some online photo sharing), or it might be worth going through any usb storage for unencrypted information stored on them. You are likely to know all the relevant special words/dates and have access to some un-encrypted files. Password cracking tools can use these as input to beat brute force guessing, if the person has not used random passwords. It is either possible to buy the software, or engage a service provider to attempt recovery (they will have a better chance if you give them the insider information). If he did choose a long strong random password, you will not be able to recover the information, sorry.
