On 12/02/2020 00:38, grarpamp wrote:

Remember attempts: Lavabit, TrueCrypt, Clipper, ...

Not to dismiss your point at all but, unless you know for sure otherwise, I think it most likely that TrueCrypt's strange demise was nothing to do with the government and more to do with the authors getting full time, well paying jobs, families, and so on, and simply not having the time or personal motivation to continue developing TrueCrypt.

Additionally, TC had reached something of a technical crunch point with regards to GPT and EFI booting and a general need for updating. These problems have since been solved with VeraCrypt (thanks to Mounir Idrassi and all who have contributed) but it seems pretty clear that the TC devs just didn't have the time/interest any more.

The abrupt and strange nature of their termination of TC certainly raised eyebrows and stoked suspicious but I don't think it was suspicious. They'd just moved on.