Being Hoisted, Petards, All That - A Random 1000 Words

 

I can’t imagine this crowd doesn’t know that in Shakespearian English “petard” is a small bomb, and being “hoisted” (lifted off the ground) by it means being blown up, and that being hoisted by your own petard means dicking around and blowing yourself up with your own machinations.

(Petard also seems to have something to do with explosive farts, which is possibly of more use to those of us who make up the hoi paloi. And may have something to do with this post, too, although I’m insufficiently motivated to sort that out, but in any event it would be an unintentional, if pretty funny, subtext.)

Uhmm…where was I?

Right. Non-Farting Petards.

So, as you probably know, I’m a security freak. Every piece of data I have is encrypted to the teeth, with shared access only to the very limited subset needed to keep the family from bankruptcy should I unexpectedly go tits-up, or “shuffle off this mortal coil” since we’re being Shakespearian today.

Anyhow, the other day I was cleaning up an old computer directory and ran across a file called “Infinity”. It had no file extensions, and viewing the raw file in a hex-editor, it had no recognizable headers I could assign to a program to open the friggin’ thing. It in fact appeared to be completely random data. I ran it through an entropy checking program that confirmed that it was VERY highly entropic (random/unstructured).

That was clue #1.

And it was friggin’ huge — this single file was 4 Gigabytes, which for those of you who don’t know this stuff, is substantial.

That was clue #2.

I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that it was an encrypted container, and more specifically an encrypted TruCrypt container.

I downloaded a copy of the old TruCrypt program, fired it up, and pointed it at the “Infinity” file. It asked for a password — hadn’t a notion what it might be, of course. I tried two or three that seemed likely from back in the day, and finally tried an ancient, barely remembered string of code that I literally haven’t used anywhere in half a decade.

And, voila, it decrypted and mounted itself as a virtual hard drive, apparently created in 2013. That’s eight years ago, for those of you playing at home.

It held some old maps and pictures, a few tax documents, random embarrassing but unimportant journal entries, keys and codes for software long since obsolete — stuff I didn’t need at all, in other words, but also stuff I don’t necessarily want out wandering around. Just toss all the garbage out of it and it’s a handy sort of thing to have because now that I’d remembered the password, it was a bulletproof place to store miscellaneous junk. After all, there are nothing wrong with TruCrypt encryption algorithms, and I can even use it with VeraCrypt, a much more current incarnation.

I closed it down and it folded back into its encrypted container. I dropped into my password manager and told it to make a new storage place for the “Infinity” password so I wouldn’t have to dick around trying to remember it next time. It thought about it for a for a few seconds then announced that I already had a password for “Infinity” and inquiring politely whether I wanted to make another. I called myself a dumbass for not checking before, and opened the entry.

Totally. Different. Password.

And not a half-assed one like the one I’d used, either. This one was K;4(v3*D\o\]8r@&rpP^bnMx] which, even at computer speeds, would take till the universe had come and gone hundreds of times before there was a 50/50 shot of breaking it.

I mean, WTF, right?

I realized that I’d designed the container for plausible deniability; if I were somehow under some extreme duress and required to give up the password I could give up the realistic-looking half-assed one. It would work, too, and decrypt one version of the 4 Gigabyte drive — the one with the private-but-not-critical pictures and tax returns on it.

But here’s the good part: The complex password decrypts an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VERSION if it is used instead. Without it, that data simply doesn’t exist.

TruCrypt took the 25-character password I input and churned for a few seconds — then again mounted the virtual drive.

Have you ever visited a place that you’ve thought about at least once in passing almost every single day but haven’t seen for years and when you suddenly find yourself there for some reason, it’s EXACTLY THE SAME, down to the sights and sounds and smells and tastes; it’s all so present that it rushes up and over you in a thundering wave nearly fit to drive you to your knees?

I sat immersed for nearly an hour. Gasping, I broke back through the surface and before I had time to argue with myself about it, stabbed the “Unmount All” button. The monitor cleared. The drive quietly folded back into its innocuous file, an overblown rose blooming in reverse back into its bud. Then I put it aside.

And I won’t open it again. Not for more years, at least. Maybe not ever.

But “Infinity” sits in obscurity, encrypted again, now contained in yet another even more heavily encrypted box, and stored on a certified and audited zero-knowledge encrypted server on the other side of the world. And I know it’s there. I haven’t the willpower to destroy the keys, which would be the end of it.

An odd thing: There’s no magic, no glittering jewels nor glowing amulets here, just a bland file icon. But while it exists, I know how the One True Ring can demand its owner wear it, how Hellraiser’s puzzle box can demand to be opened. And I know why tall tales of hapless people inexplicably enslaved by barely heard whispers in the dark send a resonating chill through practically everyone.

“Infinity” indeed.

And how’s YOUR day going?