[Nition]

If anything that cryptic abandonment actually gave me more confidence in TrueCrypt. Was it so hard to crack that the government shut it down?

[paavokoya]

I meant confidence in what came after it. Meaning the likelihood of a backdoored and/or weak software was likely.

[Nition]

Ah I get what you meant now, I agree. If some entity already had their eye on TrueCrypt and had shut it down, you wouldn't expect them to let a copycat pop up unless it was less secure.

[tptacek]

This is the "NSAKEY" of open source crypto conspiracy theories.

[quickben]

As far as I recall, there are 8 bytes set to zero in the TC header at a very curious location.

[tptacek]

That's always how these worst backdoors begin... with curious patterns of zeroes. How better to zero out a key than with actual zeroes. Nobody will ever suspect!