"Portable" Encryption Solution?

[garys_2k]

I bought one of those small usb "drives" to bring files back and forth from work, and some of the files I use with it, budgets and stock info, I'd rather keep private. Does anyone know of an encryption program that could be run from the portable drive and does not have to be installed on the host machine that's running it? Ideally, I could click on the executable on the usb drive, and it would allow encryption/decryption of any file in the Windows system.

 

[garys_2k]

From googling on this, it looks like all the encryption programs require themselves to be installed on the host machines. I would think there would be a market for a truly portable solution, where the executable could reside on the portable drive and no files, registry entries, whatever would need to be installed on the host.

All it would have to do is present a list of files and choices for "encrypt" and "decrypt," nothing fancy. Perhaps a specific file name extension could be tacked onto the end of the name after it's been encrypted... I don't do any programming, but this wouldn't seem to be a major application to develop.

 

[Segnosaur]

A simpler solution might be to use WinZip to compress the files and use a password, and only transfer the zipped files on your usb drive.

Yes, you'll have to have WinZip on both the source and destination computers, but you may already have them installed for other purposes. (Plus, you can get the evaluation version for free.)

Unfortunately, I don't think WinZip has the best password protection available, but it might be a good interm solution.

 

[evildave]

Winzip only has protection against CASUAL snooping. There are plenty of tools to RAPIDLY crack it. You also need to guarantee Winzip is installed.

There are also devices with the encryption built in. The price seems to be in the neighborhood of the unencrypted devices.

This one has a bit of software on the drive...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00009APUA/103-6925863-6259834?v=glance

This one has it built into the hardware, and the OS prompts for the password...
http://www.eyenetwatch.com/USB_hard_drive/picodisk-crypto-usb_.htm
http://www.mustardresearch.com/PicoDisk Crypto.htm

This one has a fingerprint gadget
Sony Micro Vault USB Storage Media (usm128c) Flash Memory - but I suspect most of the stuff is done in software.
http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com..._0_MICROVAULT_FLASH_W_FINGERPRINT_ID_PORTABLE

Probably the BETTER solution would be to get the one with integrated encryption. You won't forget and leave a private file unencrypted somewhere.

 

[garys_2k]

Thanks, Dave. I agree that the zip "encryption" is pretty transparant. The integrated encryption solutions, like the IBM method, looks good. I can report, too, that the IBM software seems to only work on their drives. Oh well!

 

[Beanbag]

I keep a copy of PGP for Windows installed on all my machines for just such a contingency. Anything personal or private, I do a "conventional" encryption on the file and set it up as a self-decrypting archive (SDA). You can transfer the SDA to the USB disk and then load it onto your target machine. The nice thing about the SDA is that all the decrypting code is tagged onto the encrypted file. Double-click on the SDA, and it prompts you for the password/passphrase. The original file magically reappears. The only catch is that you have to decrypt the SDA on a machine running an operating system compatable with the machine that encrypted the file, i.e. you can't run a Windows-generated SDA on a Linux machine.

The best thing is PGP for Windows is free for the download, and it's a military-grade encryption.

Regards;
Beanbag

 

[Jundar]

The only catch is that you have to decrypt the SDA on a machine running an operating system compatable with the machine that encrypted the file, i.e. you can't run a Windows-generated SDA on a Linux machine.

The best thing is PGP for Windows is free for the download, and it's a military-grade encryption.

Depending on how much work you want to put into this, try using GnuPG, the GPL´ed version of PGP (still maintained, open-source, extremely adaptable and cross-platform compatible). Should be no problem to write a short batch file for Windows based systems, the program consisting only of one executable (+ the keyrings, depending on the encryption method) .

 

[Beanbag]

Just about any recent version of PGP will do -- the problem is with self-decrypting archives. There is a small executable attached to the message file that performs the decryption AFTER the correct passphrase has been entered. The decrytion routine is platform-specific, i.e. a SDA done on a windows platform wouldn't decrypt on a Mac. I don't know if the full PGP installation is smart enough to recognize a SDA and strip off the decrypt code, then perform the decrypt.

For me, it's no issue. Virtually everything I do is Win based, though I've got a Linux box that I will occasionally go play with. Therefor, anything I lock away in an SDA will almost certainly be opened on the same type of machine.

Regards;
Beanbag