I need to encrypt a file ASAP

[Tesseract]

If anyone knows of a clean encryption program let me know. Something completely bullet proof like wikileaks uses, where the user needs to input a key to open the file. I need this in the next couple of hours. Posting this now, will go out and see what I can find myself. I am running windows 8, and I need to encrypt 10 to 200 mb files.

Any help appreciated.

[Bill Ryan]

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1)

If you have a Mac, go into Disk Utility (in your Utilities folder, which is in Applications). You can use this to encrypt a file or folder of any size.

To protect documents in a secure disk image:



Choose File > New > Blank Disk Image.
Type a name for the image, and then choose where you want to save it.
In the Name field, type a name for the disk that appears when you open the disk image.
The disk and the disk image can have the same name.
Choose the size of the disk image from the Size pop-up menu.
Be sure you choose a size that’s large enough to hold any changes and new documents you might add.
Choose an encryption option from the Encryption pop-up menu.
Use the default settings for the rest of the options:
Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format pop-up menu.
Choose “Single partition - Apple Partition Map” from the Partitions pop-up menu.
Choose “read/write disk image” from the Image Format pop-up menu.
Click Save.
Enter a password, deselect “Remember password in my keychain,” and then click OK.
Disk Utility creates the disk image and mounts its disk on your desktop.
IMPORTANT:If you select “Remember password in my keychain,” anyone with access to your computer may be able to open the disk image without entering the password.
Copy to the disk the documents you want to protect.
If you want to erase the original documents so they can’t be recovered, drag them to the Trash and choose Finder > Secure Empty Trash.
2)

Here's how to create encrypted PDFs -- in case that's useful:

https://wiki.thayer.dartmouth.edu/display/computing/Create+Encrypted+PDF

[Bill Ryan]

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Oops! saw that you're using Windows 8. Try these:


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/encrypt-decrypt-folder-file#1TC=windows-7
http://www.howtogeek.com/178912/how-to-encrypt-files-and-folders-in-windows-8.1-using-efs (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/encrypt-decrypt-folder-file#1TC=windows-7)

[DarMar]

actually is pretty pointless to use third party software, because if you loose software you lost it all..

what i know to do is explode file back to basic state (binaries) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_file

because...
Standards are very important to binary files. For example, a binary file interpreted by the ASCII character set will result in text being displayed. A custom application can interpret the file differently, a byte may be a sound, or a pixel, or even an entire word. Binary itself is meaningless, until such time as an executed algorithm defines what should be done with each bit, byte, word or block. Thus, just examining the binary and attempting to match it against known formats can lead to the wrong conclusion as to what it actually represents. This fact can be used in steganography, where an algorithm interprets a binary data file differently to reveal hidden content. Without the algorithm, it is impossible to tell that hidden content exists.

basically with todays software there is few ways to get file into binary, and REARANGE IT to your needs, it will make it unreadable.

p.s - you can do that on EVERY SYSTEM independent windows, osx, linux .. you can carry binary in casio watch, and put it back with phone if want...this ofc wants from you to KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, every other third party is actually not in your control.

to do that you would need atleast unix base system... mac's are good, linux too...
windows and encription, really? only one system on the world which HAS DOCUMENTED safety flaws in outlook and explorer...

dunno which machine you got, maybe hackintosh or something? or maybe i went too far... you could do it on windows and basic python install and few lines of code to rearange byte arrays..

[Tesseract]

Thank you, I have now got a system going which I think is working, I was able to encrypt on one pc and decrypt on another (both pcs need the software installed). Bill, thanks to you I discovered my windows 8 (absolute garbage OS) has the encrypt tool disabled, anyway - your links gave me the impetus to upgrade to 8.1 soon.

I ended up using this software: http://www.gpg4win.org/download.html

It's open source, free, no malware. But the instructions are not very good. It takes some time and a little trial and error. I still do not understand how it works.. Instructions for encrypting actual files are buried deep in the manual here http://www.gpg4win.org/doc/en/gpg4win-compendium_24.html

[watchZEITGEISTnow]

http://drag-n-crypt-ultra.en.lo4d.com/

http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/

:)

[Ilie Pandia]

Thank you, I have now got a system going which I think is working, I was able to encrypt on one pc and decrypt on another (both pcs need the software installed). Bill, thanks to you I discovered my windows 8 (absolute garbage OS) has the encrypt tool disabled, anyway - your links gave me the impetus to upgrade to 8.1 soon.

I ended up using this software: http://www.gpg4win.org/download.html

It's open source, free, no malware. But the instructions are not very good. It takes some time and a little trial and error. I still do not understand how it works.. Instructions for encrypting actual files are buried deep in the manual here http://www.gpg4win.org/doc/en/gpg4win-compendium_24.html

Ah good.

I was going to suggest gpg4win as being the strongest that I know of and still usable :)

Now make sure you keep you pass phrase and keys in a secure location. If you lose those you will not be able to decrypt the files and if you leak them to a third party, well it's like sharing your key, no need to belabor on that.

In case someone else is reading this later there is another free tool that I recommend that does file by file encryption and integrates well with Windows:

http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/

I does not seem as secure as GPG, but it's simple enough to use :).

- Ilie

[Ilie Pandia]

Oh, and a final word: Make good backups of your Encryption software :). You don't want to discover that newer versions are no longer compatible with your files or the site where you downloaded the software no longer exists!

I know this stuff is supposed to be standard, but software changes, bugs are removed/introduced so unless you test there is no guarantee a newer version will decrypt your files.

[Tesseract]

Thanks Ilie, your opinion matters a lot :)

I will make some backup copies of the software as you suggest.

[Magnus]

What about WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm)? It utilize AES-256 (http://www.rarlab.com/rar_archiver.htm) encryption as well as creation of standalone self extracting executables "SFX".

WinRAR offer a 40 day trial period.

Using a long password, creating an encrypted SFX archive should be a fairly safe and handy method by any standard.

WinRAR runs on Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, Android and of course Windows.

Non-SFX archives using RAR5 compression created by WinRAR v5.00 and onwards aren't compatible with earlier versions of WinRAR.

Some security reading (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/password-recovery-gpu,2945-8.html).

Also, about "Rainbow Tables" (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3817941/rar-passwords-why-dont-rainbow-tables-work)

[Xanth]

Gnu pg works well on most operating systems. (looks like you've selected a windows variant gpg4win)

https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html

The main thing to get you head around is handling public and private keys - which gives you to ability to encrypt something so that only your intended recipient can decrypt it.

[seehas]

Im using winrar since over 15years and the so called trial is still running for me no need to buy it works anytime