Can I play games and listen to music from an encrypted hard drive (encrypted with Veracrypt)?

[Final Bulwark]

Hi. So, essentially what the title says... Can I play games and listen to music from an encrypted internal, storage hard drive (encrypted with Veracrypt)? (not system drive)

Thank you. (Sorry for the short thread. Ask if yo need more info.)

 

[Solaris17]

IF its decrypted yeah.

 

[Final Bulwark]

IF its decrypted yeah.

Thanks for the raply. So, help me just clarify... If I open veracrypt and access the drive with the password, it will open in windows explorer and when I launch games or music they will run for sure, with no issues from games or music player?

 

[AsRock]

Why don't you just try it ?.

 

[ir_cow]

It works. But isn't this software backdoor cracked already? That was the downfall of True crypt.

 

[Final Bulwark]

Why don't you just try it ?.

I will, but I'm still learning tutorials about veracrypt.

It works. But isn't this software backdoor cracked already? That was the downfall of True crypt.

Does that mean it can be easily decrypted?

Just another quicq question about vera. will the software spin my hard disk at 100% while encrypting for hours?

 

[R-T-B]

It works. But isn't this software backdoor cracked already? That was the downfall of True crypt.

No. Veracrypt is fine and recently passed a security audit. Even Truecrypt was mostly fine with no backdoors ever confirmed, the reasons the old devs had for leaving were unclear.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

It works. But isn't this software backdoor cracked already? That was the downfall of True crypt.

No, TrueCrypt was audited a couple of different times and no backdoors were found. Eventually some privilege escalation and ACEs were found by DLL hijacking. While these were fixed in VeraCrypt, they still exist in the unmaintained TrueCrypt code. While VeraCrypt is pretty OK with access times, it can be still slower than a bare SSD. VeraCrypt should come with a benchmarking utility that will tell you how fast your CPU/RAM can decrypt data with each encryption method.

 

[ir_cow]

No. Veracrypt is fine and recently passed a security audit. Even Truecrypt was mostly fine with no backdoors ever confirmed, the reasons the old devs had for leaving were unclear.

The aduit happened for Truecrypt and suddenly the devs left. I would say someone found the backdoor lol. Veracrypt from my understanding is just the same code but with a new name and new devs.

 

[R-T-B]

The aduit happened for Truecrypt and suddenly the devs left. I would say someone found the backdoor lol. Veracrypt from my understanding is just the same code but with a new name and new devs.

You have your chain of events wrong. Remember I work security for a living so I've been following the project.

No, TrueCrypt was audited a couple of different times and no backdoors were found. Eventually some privilege escalation and ACEs were found by DLL hijacking. While these were fixed in VeraCrypt, they still exist in the unmaintained TrueCrypt code. While VeraCrypt is pretty OK with access times, it can be still slower than a bare SSD. VeraCrypt should come with a benchmarking utility that will tell you how fast your CPU/RAM can decrypt data with each encryption method.

This. Keep in mind the TrueCrypt audit was done by Veracrypt devs well after the Truecrypt devs vanished.

Personally, I don't use software encryption for my needs (I use OPAL compliant SSDs). But I do keep up with the project.

 

[ir_cow]

I just remember dumping TrueCrypt for Veracrypt after finding out about the audit. The drive went bad and the recovery people wouldn't work on the drive since it was encrypted. That was the end of full disk encrypted for me. What good does it do if you can't recovery the data anyways...

If you say Veracrypt is good, I'll believe you.

 

[R-T-B]

If you say Veracrypt is good, I'll believe you.

Good for encryption! Data recovery is a whole nother animal, horrible for that!

 

[Final Bulwark]

I just remember dumping TrueCrypt for Veracrypt after finding out about the audit. The drive went bad and the recovery people wouldn't work on the drive since it was encrypted. That was the end of full disk encrypted for me. What good does it do if you can't recovery the data anyways...

If you say Veracrypt is good, I'll believe you.

Thanks for reminding me of drive health.

Good for encryption! Data recovery is a whole nother animal, horrible for that!

At some point I will get more drives and copy all my files to the a new 4TB drive for example... And encrypt that one too. That's why I'm also wondering will Vera spin the hard drive at 100% the entire time when it is encrypting it? Because one of my drives is a now older Western Digital Se Enterprise and I don't want to push it too much. Will the encryption process be dangerous for its mechanical physical health?

 

[jon_joy_1999]

Veracrypt works entirely in RAM, and then writes the encrypted data out to the hard disk. I think a better question is what kind of data do you want to put on a drive that could fail.

 

[Mussels]

If the drive/device uses hardware decryption, then it'll be as fast as the device allow
If its software then it has to be decrypted before use, and will definitely be slow

Comment above says it's ran in system RAM, which says not only is there performance concerns but outright "your games better fit in memory" concerns
Don't put data on an encrypted drive that doesn't need encryption?

 

[Final Bulwark]

data do you want to put on a drive that could fail.

If the drive/device uses hardware decryption, then it'll be as fast as the device allow
If its software then it has to be decrypted before use, and will definitely be slow

Comment above says it's ran in system RAM, which says not only is there performance concerns but outright "your games better fit in memory" concerns
Don't put data on an encrypted drive that doesn't need encryption?

Thank you for the reply guys.. But I don't understand the "your games better fit in memory" part. I never did encryption before. Do you mean performance in my games will be extremely negatively affected? What will change in how games work with RAM? An yes, all my games I play from HDDs... Edit 2: Which performance concerns? I thought my RAM was faster than my HDD?

Edit 3: Vera says my CPU supports AES.

Hi again, edit... So I found this which basically answers my question about game performance https://superuser.com/questions/992...acrypt-on-a-home-pc-affect-my-gaming-performa

But I still didn't get an answer about my concern - will Vera phisically utilize - spin the hard drive at 100% load the entire time while it is encrypting it for the first time (which will take up to 4 hours)?

 

[Mussels]

I thought my RAM was faster than my HDD?

Try loading a 40GB game into your RAM, plus the parts the game actually needs to run with.

You're doubling your RAM requirements at minimum.

will Vera phisically utilize - spin the hard drive at 100% load the entire time while it is encrypting it for the first time (which will take up to 4 hours)?

Because there's no way for us to know that.
Can the rest of your PC encrypt these files fast enough to keep the drive writing the entire time? Then yes.

Hard drives are on or off, there's no such thing as spinning at 100% load, they're spinning or they're not spinning - there's no variable speeds or in-between states here.

 

[jon_joy_1999]

Thank you for the reply guys.. But I don't understand the "your games better fit in memory" part. I never did encryption before. Do you mean performance in my games will be extremely negatively affected? What will change in how games work with RAM? An yes, all my games I play from HDDs... Edit 2: Which performance concerns? I thought my RAM was faster than my HDD?

Edit 3: Vera says my CPU supports AES.

Hi again, edit... So I found this which basically answers my question about game performance https://superuser.com/questions/992...acrypt-on-a-home-pc-affect-my-gaming-performa

But I still didn't get an answer about my concern - will Vera phisically utilize - spin the hard drive at 100% load the entire time while it is encrypting it for the first time (which will take up to 4 hours)?

I think the response regarding a game fitting entirely in memory was based on my assertion that VeraCrypt works entirely in RAM, but that's not accurate at all. Nobody who knows how VeraCrypt works would make that assertion. The Superuser response is 100% accurate regarding data access and performance.
I haven't used VeraCrypt in a while, so I'm not sure if it supports in-place whole disk encryption. If it does then it will run as fast as possible.
If it doesn't support in-place encryption and you do not perform a Quick Format of the new encrypted disk then it will format every sector of the disk as fast as possible.
The expectation is that you're running on suitable hardware that can handle the load.

 

[Final Bulwark]

Try loading a 40GB game into your RAM, plus the parts the game actually needs to run with.

You're doubling your RAM requirements at minimum.


Because there's no way for us to know that.
Can the rest of your PC encrypt these files fast enough to keep the drive writing the entire time? Then yes.

Hard drives are on or off, there's no such thing as spinning at 100% load, they're spinning or they're not spinning - there's no variable speeds or in-between states here.

I completed encrypting sucessfully. I encripted everything in my house from HDDs to flach drives and even my network traffic with Tor, just beacuse I can and because Privacy Is a Basic Human rignt. Encryption and a HDD is like a Lock on your House Door. Should you not lock your door just because you don't need to since law enforcement exists? So I'm playing Assassins Creed games and Witcher 3 and I really don't see a difference. I already have 16 GB ram, in my casegames use up to 7 and not more. even if some game used 14 cause of the encryption, I would just add 32 GB of ram since my CPU supports it. So I don't really get why the RAM concerns.

About hard drive, yes I know that a hdd can be in 0 rpm or 7200 rpm state, but is there really no difference while the hdd is not doing anything and while it is 100% utilization while copying for example? So the hdds are at 100% load even when they are at 0% load just because the platters are rotation at 7200 rpm even while task manager says 0% ? How does that work exactly?

Edit: also when I walk the streets I also encrypt myself with a balck hoodie and a black face bandana at the same time. Because it is my legal right to wear a hoodie and a face bandana / shawl. There is world outside of america too. america did not take over Europe and here we have freedom to wear what we want.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I haven't used VeraCrypt in a while, so I'm not sure if it supports in-place whole disk encryption.

It does.

 

[Mussels]

About hard drive, yes I know that a hdd can be in 0 rpm or 7200 rpm state, but is there really no difference while the hdd is not doing anything and while it is 100% utilization while copying for example? So the hdds are at 100% load even when they are at 0% load just because the platters are rotation at 7200 rpm even while task manager says 0% ? How does that work exactly?

You're asking a question about what colour the sun is, then answering by saying the ocean is blue and asking how these can both possibly be true - extremely unrelated facts with a lot of steps in between, even a quick google search on what task manager is reporting would have helped you out here


The RPM of the physical platter and spinning is one part of many in the drive, and task manager is NOT reporting on the RPM

 

[Selaya]

the prevailing consensus (at the time, anyways) was that truecrypt disbanded/rebranded as veracrypt following the snowden incident's rather high-profile exposure (supposedly they were asked/coerced into putting a backdoor into a future release at some point, and they just chose to fold instead)

 

[qubit]

Why don't you just use BitLocker? It's built right into Windows, works seamlessly and is good enough security even for enterprises. You 100% can run everything with it and almost no performance loss, either.

 

[Selaya]

in any case, you can do everything from an encrypted partition or filecontainer, you needn't worry about it

 

[lexluthermiester]

Why don't you just use BitLocker?

Because Bitlocker is not only less than secure, it has known backdoors deliberately engineered into the way it works. Using bitlocker is about as secure as a wet paper bag to the right people.

is good enough security even for enterprises.

No it isn't. When the US DoD and SEC forbid it's use on any and all government computers, you know you shouldn't be using it.