Need some advice from anyone familiar with encryption.
I currently have Drivecrypt which I have had for several years and use 1344 bit Blowfish which I thought was pretty secure.
But having had it for several years I thought things might have moved on a bit and upon checking got conflicting opinions on this matter.
A computer geek I know, reckons he could break Blowfish 1344 in a couple of hours, but Drivecrypt themselves told me it’s still pretty secure.
The geek recommended Truecrypt which uses AES algorithm.
Another programme sometimes is Axecrypt which seems fairly simple and easy-to-use but don’t know about the strength of the encryption.
Would welcome any advice on the best and most secure method to use
Related posts:
3 responses so far ↓
1 Richard C // Aug 13, 2008
I recommend truecrypt, I know many people who say it is one of the best right now and its free
Its really secure and with great features including hidden volumes so if you're encrypted file is found out, inputting a secondary password will reveal a different volume than the one where the hidden files are.
Its easy and quick, encryption creates a file which when used mounts and appears as a hard drive on the computer
2 Me M // Aug 13, 2008
I agree with Richard. TrueCrypt is great. As he said, for the really paranoid (or those with something they must be hidden), it supports hidden volumes. This means you create an encrypted drive or file, but then you create a second, hidden volume with a different password in that file. The second volume is created at the back end of the file and it is impossible to tell if it exists or not because the program randomizes all of the data in the first volume when it is created. So others cannot tell if you have encrypted data on a second volume that is hidden or if it is just random data. This lets you put decoy data that seems worth of protection on the first volume and ‘real’ data on the second volume.
Also true crypt lets you choose the method of encryption you wish to use for partitions/files/volumes. It supports AES, blowfish, and others as well. It also lets you choose the amount of bits some types of encryptions use. Furthermore, it lets you ‘piggy back’ encryptions. This slows access down considerably, but I doubt that someone is going to crack a AES encryption on top of a Blowfish encryption if they don’t even know the first encryption type…. crackers won’t even realize there is a second encryption on top of that.
True crypt does let you encrypt your windows partition as well as other drives/files. However, this will slow down your computer’s performance considerably and it only supports one type of encryption for the drive that windows is installed on (and I think it is one of the weaker encryptions in truecrypt’s supported encryptions).
True crypt lets you encrypt entire drives (so they don’t even appear to be partitioned), it lets you encrypt partitions, and it lets you create encrypted files that can be mounted like virtual drives. Truecrypt is supported on multiple platforms (windows, linux, etc). However, Windows is the only one that has a nice GUI.
If you are really paranoid about storing things go with truecrypt and create a second, hidden volume with a different password. However, if you are that paranoid about data, perhaps you should reconsider if you want data that sensitive at all. Also remember, that windows often creates files in the Temp directories for certain actions. So even if a file is on the encrypted drive, copies may or may not (depending on the action and program used) be placed unencrypted drive–depending on the location of the temp directories and page/swap files.
3 Greg // Aug 20, 2009
Your geek friend is like a lot of geeks - full of big talk. If he can break the encryption in a couple hours, why hasn’t he won the $100,000 yet? The makers of Drivecrypt have offered a $100,000 prize to anyone who can break into one of their encrypted containers. Nobody has collected yet. And Drivecrypt has AES as one of the encryptions to choose from.
Leave a Comment