The TC license you'll probably have to hunt for a bit, as it has been pulled from the Web and was never included in the Wayback Machine. I was not able to find it. But as for the DFSG, I mentioned them because (a) you did first, and (b) it is more or less what the OSI uses as its definition of Open Source. The FSF's definition is extremely similar.

You've already referenced the Debian Free Software Guidelines. That would be a perfectly good place to start. Read the TrueCrypt license (as I have, although it was a couple years ago) and compare with the four freedoms mentioned therein. I think you will find it violates at least the first.

By "more difficult" I mean "not worth their effort." I'm hoping to dissuade them from even trying, not because what I have to protect is particularly valuable, but because in principle I don't want them snooping on my stuff, *or* anyone else's either. I want the bar for them to do so to be high enough that they won't bother unless there is some plausible reason for them to do so.

Here is what my belief explains that yours does not: if their actions were not coerced, then the only other possible explanation is that they were rude, unhelpful, not in keeping with the general standards of open (or in this case semi-open) software in general, and burned every possible bridge back to the security community forever. There was no possible incentive for them to do this and every reason not to. The only reasonable alternative is that they were coerced, and the only entity likely to do so, and capable of getting away with it, would be some agency of the U.S. government.

OK, you got me on this one. Some people are that stupid. What I should have said was, "even most within Corporate America." No one in any of the companies I've ever worked for would trust it, and I'm not certain that any publicly traded company legally even can, because of Sarbanes-Oxley.

The license under which TrueCrypt was distributed is neither Free by the FSF definitition, nor Open by the OSI's, mostly because of usage restrictions which are not allowed by either. None of this is in any way controversial. It is simple fact, acknowledged by anyone who is familiar with all three. You do not appear to be familiar with any, thus your confusion. Source availability is a necessary but NOT sufficient condition for both freedom and openness.

A few facts to help clarify your thinking. First, RMS advocates Free Software, not Open Source. They're not the same thing, although the first can be viewed as a subset of the second. Second, neither RMS, nor any other public figure I'm aware of, has ever suggested that not GPL means not open-source, or even not free. RMS does explain eloquently and persuasive why Free (which implies Open) is better than merely Open, and why copyleft licenses are a more useful tool, in most cases, to preserve freedom. But he quite readily acknowledges that licenses such as BSD (new-style) or Apache are Free, which, generally, implies they are Open as well. Third, ownership of the source implies the right to re-license at will, but this right accrues only to the owner, not to those to whom it is redistributed, unless it is distributed in the public domain.

Correct. But GP is also correct. It had to be "source available and will build binaries identical to those we distribute" in order for it to be trusted. But "source available" does not automatically translate to OSS, which does not automatically translate to Free/Libre. Each of these is, to a first approximation, a subset of the previous.

he most plausible explanation to me so far is that the TC developer with the keys have gone to work for a commercial competitor to TrueCrypt and decided to throw a grenade in order to drive as many people away from TC as possible and pick up the pieces.

Not plausible in my respectful opinion. First, presuming that a commercial project would be closed-source, who would trust a closed-source encryption product? Even Corporate America is not that stooooopid. Second, supposing they otherwise might have trusted said product . . . would they still do so knowing it was developed by the very people who torpedoed TrueCrypt? That would be difficult information to keep secret for very long.

Occam's Razor suggests that this is exactly what it appears to be. . . another salvo in "No Such Agency's" ongoing war against every human being in the world. It will be treated as such by me and by many others, lessons will be learned, and we will move forward. Hopefully in a way that makes their (NSA's) lives more difficult in the future, rather than easier.

No, I think you misunderstand. Fascism is nationalistic socialism. Bolshevism is internationalist socialism. Stalin and Hitler, in spite of differing ideologies and opposition to one another, prove to be very much similar in terms of their authoritarianism as well as their body counts. As I said, each sucks more than the other.

... I'm pretty demented now!

The translation is not as bad as the experience sounds like it must have been. Note that German and English are very similar as languages go.

"Recently ate I a bad batch of Tacos from Taco Bell. Massive gastrointestinal complaints quickly. I tried quickly to the nearest bathroom . After what seemed like an eternity , I finally found what was probably the worst public bathroom in New York. So I sat down , risking a thousand different kinds of messed -butt disease to launch just in time for a nuclear -equipped missiles shit directly in the shell . Unfortunately, the water in the bowl is a deterrent to the overwhelming force of the chair proved to be - his rocket . After the start of the water itself , every part of my body as well as the ceiling and most of the walls we went to the toilet bowl to break, it breaks into two parts. I could only watch in horror as all the other "water" and its contents flooded the room like a tsunami. The few other people in the vicinity gasped for air while running as fast as they could to , so that I have the worst smell from hell and the mother only in security - to endure humper all embarrassments . I do not think I even have a chance to wipe the freshly baked Dingleberries of my back. Based on this experience , I lean against the choice of a different restaurant next time."

In the Christian faith, it is, for both genders (1 Cor. 7:1-5). However, so is love (1 Cor. 13). I have the right to ask my wife for sex, but, because I know she is no longer interested, I choose not to. On the rare occasions when she wants it - and the even more rare occasions when I don't - I'm here for her.

My understanding was that we're not sure about that yet. We do know that various toxins can be dissolved in fat cells, which can then cause cancer or other diseases as they are slowly (or quickly, ironically whilst one is losing weight by burning it off) reabsorbed into the rest of the body. And while there is still a lot we don't yet know about the role of antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and hormones in the food supply, all that we do know to date suggests that all of these are very, very bad. These are among the things we eat too much of, and many of them do get deposited in fat tissue. The one thing we do know reasonably for sure: a varied, nutrient-dense, minimally processed diet is best for most people.

Nonsense. You can get one online for about $20.

It ceases to be a free market when government, under the guise of "regulation," can be lobbied by the already-successful to harm new or existing competitors. Google "regulatory capture" if you wish to learn more. Regulation almost always protects the existing players. It almost never protects the public. Those who argue for more of it, are arguing for more corporatism, whether they realize it or not. A better solution would be rule of law, where businesses are free to do as they wish, *except* to harm people without their consent, and all of them, big or small, play on the same, level playing field without obvious mechanisms for the largest ones to tilt it in their own favor.