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by aasarava 4725 days ago
So are you just syncing entire truecrypt .tc files to Dropbox? Does that work incrementally or does the entire .tc file have to get resent every time you modify a file within?
3 comments

I always assumed it wouldn't work incrementally, but it seems to sync my 200MB tc file too quickly to be uploading the entire thing when I make a small change. Perhaps someone who actually knows something about encryption can speak to this. Does every byte in an encrypted volume change when a piece of data changes? I guess that would be too inefficient to be the case, no?
Yes, only parts of the underlying file are changed. TrueCrypt uses XTS mode of operation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_encryption_theory, http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/modes-of-operation).
The entire file may be resent, but practically it works just fine for me. The total volume is only 250mb and it is updated infrequently.
The entire file is resent.
No, only changed blocks are resent. The scattering effect of Truecrypt encryption plus the relatively large blocksize does amplify the number of changed blocks somewhat.

Previous investigation and results:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2546626

Citation? Other comments are offering conflicting reports.