why does truecrypt only allow ASCII in passwords

I've been looking for an answer to that all over the web and found none.
Only thing I found:

TrueCrypt Volume passwords must consist only of printable ASCII characters. Non-ASCII characters in passwords are not supported and may cause various problems (e.g., inability to mount a volume).

Now I would like to know what other problems it can cause as they state VARIOUS problems.

 

Designed that way? Not sure if anybody bothered to put non ascii chars against advice and document all that can go wrong. I guess it will break/not function as they said it will.

 

my questions IS why is it designed that way?

 

because it is easier not to worry about non ascii chars that can break things if not implemented/programmed well. and i doubt there is a need to support it

 

Not including all 108k unicode characters lowers the possible number of combinations around 423 times. I would say that is quite a trade-off..

 

Theoretically yes. However using those Unicode characters posses it's own set of issues. For example using a Unicode character wrong would essentially break the entire system. Either by preventing access or ignoring those characters and in effect making your password weaker.

Considering a 22 character ASCII password has the same (approximately) permutations as a 128 bit symmetric key and a ~30 character ASCII password has the same as a 256 bit symmetric key, I don't understand the need for this. If you are so paranoid I suggest using a 64 character ASCII password with maximum entropy and at least one character from each of the 95 character sets. Such a password has more possible permutations than a 256 bit symmetric key.

also check out https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm