Comments for How can I password protect my documents?

Comment from Glenn P. on 2009-04-10

2009-04-10T14:10:03Z

One good way to "password protect" (i.e., encrypt) files is to use WinZip (available at http://www.winzip.com). Provided you're smart enough to enable it (and not use the stupid "legacy" encryption method!), it uses AES, the Advanced Encryption Standard, which was privately developed under the sponsorship of the U.S. government and is a genuine "military-strength" cipher.

WinZip is great for encryption because any encrypted file should really be compressed anyway, because this greatly enhances the encryption by helping to defeat cryptanalysis (compression disguises the original file's natural characteristics).

There are only two caveats I see with using WinZip and AES -- one practical, and one paranoiac. In order, they are:

1. DON'T, under any circumstances, forget your passphrase! There are no "backdoors" (at least, that we know of!) to WinZip, so if you lose your passphrase you have essentially lost your file!

2. Because AES was developed under government auspices, there are those who suspect that the government must therefore necessarily have the key to it. Whether this is true or untrue, it would seem merely prudent not to trust to it anything that you would wish to keep from law enforcement. For that purpose, I'd recommend something like Blowfish, which has been extensively peer reviewed and which has remained secure and uncracked to this day, and into the invention and developement of which the government never once shoved it all-snuffing nose.

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Comment from Michael Horowitz on 2009-04-07

2009-04-07T18:06:12Z

Minor point of clarification about TrueCrypt: It only offers protection when TrueCrypt is not running. That's because the password is only needed to first "mount" the encrypted file blob. While TrueCrypt is running and your sensitive files are visible as a drive letter, it offers no protection.

That's true for any technique one might use to encrypt data. In order to actually use the data, it must be decrypted. While decrypted it's .... well, decrypted.

- Leo
08-Apr-2009

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Comment from EC on 2007-10-01

2007-10-01T12:28:59Z

I had password-protected "My Documents" all this while and recently my hard disk is corrupted. I'm trying to retrieve whatever i could by plugging in my hard disk into another working computer. However, i couldn't access my documents cos it's password protected. I have the password, but how do I access it?

You didn't say HOW you password protected it.

If you used Windows, you may not be able to access it. You *might* be able to using a Linux boot disk.

However if you encrypted it using Windows native encryption, you can only decrypt on the original system, and logged in as the original account that had encrypted it.

- Leo
01-Oct-2007

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Comment from Trampus on 2007-07-31

2007-07-31T19:43:23Z

In response to Thomas post, is there anyway to open the encrypted file. I had to replace a motherboard and now cannot get teh OS to come up. I now have the harddrive hooked up to another computer.

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Comment from Thomas on 2006-04-12

2006-04-13T02:01:09Z

Leo missed pointing out one of the biggest gotcha's in the world of file encryption, and that is the built-in windows file encryption attribute. What looks like a great feature, and one that works great when employed by the unsuspecting newby, is in fact his/her worst nightmare just waiting to spoil the day. The encryption scheme is user based. Only the user who created the encrypted file can see it, and any one else not logged on as that user will not see the file (including the administrator.)

Problems start when the user forgets his login, or crashes his OS and has to reinstall. The user profile changes and the user will no longer have access to the file. There are preventive measures... profile backups, some backup programs copy the file in decrypted form, and probably other safeguards, but who needs hidden gotcha's like that.

All good points. You'll notice that Windows built-in file encryption was not one of my recommendations :-).

- Leo
12-Apr-2006

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Comment from Ivan Tadej on 2006-04-08

2006-04-08T17:41:03Z

Yeah, as Leo already said, there are several approaches and many different programs to use to keep a private data safe.

My favorite text-encrypter program is LockNote: http://locknote.steganos.com (SF-link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/locknote, download it here: http://www.steganos.com/LockNote.exe), which saves the encrypted text into an .exe file itself, and thus makes it "portable", which means that there is no need for this program to be residing on other computers, the user just needs a password to see the contents. while the other one is Ciphrtxt: http://www.roadkil.net/ciphrtxt.html program (download it here: http://www.roadkil.net/downloads/ciphrtxt.zip), a similar application that encrypts text of any size, however, this one doesn't store it in any dedicated file, but you just need to copy it into a Notepad for instance and save it. Next time, you just need to copy this text back to the Ciphrtxt's UI and decrypt it with a previously choosen password ...

Well, and there is yet another program similar to LockNote mentioned above; this one is called fSekrit[: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Other/fSekrit, also a portable/non-setup-required application which same as LockNote "generates" portable .exes that contain encrypted text, however, it is totally smaller in size (fSekrit's 39.0 KB compare to LockNote's 296 KB), and there are few other advantages too.

And finally, there is a free version of Cryptainer called Cryptainer LE: http://www.cypherix.com/cryptainerle/index.htm (I use the paid-for version Cryptainer PE); this one creates an encrypted container/vault which functions like any other drive (C: or D:) on your computer. You just need to drag and drop any file into the container (in Explorer or in Cryptainer's GUI), which is then automatically encrypted. Cryptainer files can only be viewed, accessed, browsed or modified by the user who has the key to open it. At other times it remains invisible.

P.S. There are also many others that I've tried so far (some that are able to "lock" files, or "hide" folders, others that encrypt single files etc.), but these ones mentioned above seem to be the best, at least for me personally.

best regards,
Ivan Tadej, Slovenia, Europe
http://users.volja.net/tayiper/

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