Is there an way to programmatically read a file from a TrueCrypt disk into memory?

Question

I need to load a file from an umounted TrueCrypt disk into memory. Is there any way to do this programmatically? Does TrueCrypt offer an API?

The way I believe is best for attempting this would be to mount the volume (prompting the user for a password, of course), open the file, and then unmount the volume. Is there a way to do this all automatically?

I am on Windows Vista. I have C#, Python, and Perl readily available.

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 14 '23 at 18:56

12

Can you not use the true crypt command line from say System.Diagnostics.Process?

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace Test {
    
    class TrueCrypeStart
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            string password = getPassword(...);
            Process tc= new Process();

            tc.StartInfo.FileName   = "TrueCrypt.exe";
            tc.StartInfo.Arguments = string.Format("/v \"{0}\" /p \"{1}\" /q", ...mount info ..., password); // for quiet!

            tc.Start();
        }
    }
}

edited Jun 14 '23 at 18:56

Habip Oğuz

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answered Aug 22 '09 at 10:38

Preet Sangha

64,563
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4

Be aware that hardcoding the password into a .NET assembly could make it easy to extract the pw by decompiling it. You should consider obfuscating your code if security is an issue. – galaktor Aug 22 '09 at 11:50
3

@galaktor - I solved that problem by omitting the /p option, allowing the user to input the password themselves directly into TrueCrypt. – MiffTheFox Nov 09 '09 at 00:16
But sending a password like this can be a problem because the password will be visible as pure-text: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13279436/see-command-line-arguments-being-passed-to-a-program – Nav May 30 '13 at 09:41
@nav - All plain text can be a problem. This why you mitigate risk using further levels of security. For example you could avoid harcoding or use keyrings, or perhaps hardware keys. etc. etc. – Preet Sangha May 30 '13 at 09:53
@Preet: Thanks. In this case, would it be possible to encrypt the password (or the entire commandline string) in some way to ensure that truecrypt can be invoked from a C++ app without revealing the password? – Nav May 30 '13 at 10:22
@Nav - not sure - you will have to not invoke the .exe as a process, rather you'll have see if you can use the code directly. – Preet Sangha May 30 '13 at 10:26
@Preet. Thanks, but using the code has the restriction that I'll have to publish my code. That's what the license says, and I can't do that. – Nav May 30 '13 at 10:28
@Nav - then you'll have to consider an alternative such as http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4432816/truecrypt-alternative-with-api – Preet Sangha May 30 '13 at 10:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 14 '14 at 12:06

0

TrueResize includes an open-source C# TrueCrypt library that will allow you to read the encrypted volume (without having to mount it), an additional library includes NTFS support.

answered Mar 14 '14 at 12:06

Tal Aloni

1,429
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Is there an way to programmatically read a file from a TrueCrypt disk into memory?

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