Talk:FreeOTFE

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[edit] Ease of use

I think the program is uncomprehendable if you don't take multiple days to learn about the subject first.

Except from that, take a look at these lines:

If you create a hidden volume within an existing volume, be warned: mounting and adding data to the "host" volume may result in the "hidden" volume being overwritten, and its data destroyed.

When creating a hidden volume within an existing volume, ensure that the offset you specify is large enough such that it does not overwrite any of the system areas of that host volume (e.g. the FAT)

I hardly know what they mean, but would I trust my data to a program that apparently can overwrite it?

I thought it to be a simple window that scambles/unscambles data. Something like WinZip, but simpler. It is not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Svenpb (talk • contribs).

First, note that Wikipedia talk pages are for discussing the article and not for expressing your opinions on the subject, unless they are relevant to the article.

The fact that hidden volumes can be overwritten is a feature, not a bug — it's called deniable encryption, e.g., hiding the fact that there is a hidden volume in the first place. Several disk encryption utilities have this feature and all of them share this behavior.

If you don't need this feature and want your data to be safe, just don't use the hidden volume feature.

As for being like WinZip — no, tools like this transparently encrypt and decrypt all the data that is stored on the encrypted volume at all times; otherwise, if you're storing unencrypted data on the disk even temporarily, then that makes your data susceptible to forensics. -- intgr 10:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Written like an advertisement

I have set the "advert" category. The reader is directly addressed as user of the software. The article is full of praise and provides hardly more than feature lists. I am willing to believe that OTFE is a great piece of software, but Wikipedia is not the place to judge this.

--217.226.114.245 (talk) 20:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

TBH, a lot of other pages relating to similar products could have the same tag added. But although the article does list some of its features, the subject's certainly encyclopedic.

I've removed the advert tag, and replaced it with a stub tag instead - it would be helpful if someone would flesh it out a bit more.

Thinking about adding some more to it - and looking at a number of the other disk encryption pages; FreeOTFE has a number of features in common with serveral other OTFE systems. I'd suggest removing those features which are common to a number of the disk encryption related articles (e.g. Private Disk, truecrypt, bestcrypt) from those articles, and moving them to a single page listing the differences, rather than duplicating here. XFireRaidX (talk) 21:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

ISTM, that's what the Comparison of disk encryption software article is? Nuwewsco (talk) 22:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes partially has the kind of thing I was thinking of as a summary but more than that theres more information that could be included eg it would probably be worth moving the "Plausible deniability" and "Other features" sections of truecrypt to the Disk encryption software page instead of copying it here.

It may also be worth moving the "Features" section of the bestcrypt article to Comparison of disk encryption software as well? XFireRaidX (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)