dataminer
asked on
Data encryption
Hi there,
I will travel a lot in the next time and have to take a relatively large amount of data (100M -5 G) with me on harddisks and CD/DVDs.
I therefore need a encryption sofware which
1. can encrypt large amount of data (100M - 5G) relatively quickly
2. is free
3. is very secure sothat hackers would have a hard time if they intend to crack the encrypted data. A reference on any comparative report with respect to the security of encryption softwares would be appreciated.
Thanks
I will travel a lot in the next time and have to take a relatively large amount of data (100M -5 G) with me on harddisks and CD/DVDs.
I therefore need a encryption sofware which
1. can encrypt large amount of data (100M - 5G) relatively quickly
2. is free
3. is very secure sothat hackers would have a hard time if they intend to crack the encrypted data. A reference on any comparative report with respect to the security of encryption softwares would be appreciated.
Thanks
zephyr_hex (Megan)
what OS are you running?
ASKER
windows xp
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One tool/cipher is all you should need. Multiple encrypted files are seemingly more secure than a single one, as long as seperate passwords are used for each encryption used.
The security of the cipher is realitive to the resources available to "break" or "crack" it. Blowfish 128, is fater in software than AES 128, both are strong ciphers, and the possible keyspace is the same, blowfish is more likely to have a bruteforce attack finish before the AES attack, and it's not due to any weakness, it's actaully due to it's own speed.
It's all realitive in the end. In my opinion, with the hardware available today, a strong cipher such as AES, BlowFish, TwoFish... your secrets are safe for quite a while if the pass phrase is long, and well chosen. Adding other ciphers on top of an aleady secure one slows down your access to the data, adds multiple points of failure. If you tried to use any of the tools above with truecrypt, your likely to lose your data as truecrypt is a "transparent" encryption, so it's not going to mix well with other ciphers, they will block truecrypts access to the data if truecrypt was working with the data at the same time...
"hackers" and crackers don't spend weeks trying to get one password to one archive unless there is money in it and it is likely to pay off for them... A keylogger makes their job much much easier, and the path of leaste resistance is preferred.
-rich
The security of the cipher is realitive to the resources available to "break" or "crack" it. Blowfish 128, is fater in software than AES 128, both are strong ciphers, and the possible keyspace is the same, blowfish is more likely to have a bruteforce attack finish before the AES attack, and it's not due to any weakness, it's actaully due to it's own speed.
It's all realitive in the end. In my opinion, with the hardware available today, a strong cipher such as AES, BlowFish, TwoFish... your secrets are safe for quite a while if the pass phrase is long, and well chosen. Adding other ciphers on top of an aleady secure one slows down your access to the data, adds multiple points of failure. If you tried to use any of the tools above with truecrypt, your likely to lose your data as truecrypt is a "transparent" encryption, so it's not going to mix well with other ciphers, they will block truecrypts access to the data if truecrypt was working with the data at the same time...
"hackers" and crackers don't spend weeks trying to get one password to one archive unless there is money in it and it is likely to pay off for them... A keylogger makes their job much much easier, and the path of leaste resistance is preferred.
-rich
1. fast
2. free
3. uncrackable
4. XP
hmm, did you miss 5. can cook pizza ?
Sorry, but I guess you need to cut at least 2 of your 4 requirements. Tell us which ones.
2. free
3. uncrackable
4. XP
hmm, did you miss 5. can cook pizza ?
Sorry, but I guess you need to cut at least 2 of your 4 requirements. Tell us which ones.
TrueCrypt has most of that going for it... nothing is uncrackable, so it's got 1,2,4 going for it.
This is a good read to understand why a phassphrase of significant length and being well choosen will help you more than some enormous bit-length
http://www.schneier.com/essay-028.html
-rich
This is a good read to understand why a phassphrase of significant length and being well choosen will help you more than some enormous bit-length
http://www.schneier.com/essay-028.html
-rich
depends of each person's definition of "fast" for 5GB data (hence my 2 out of 4;-)
ASKER
TrueCrypt seems really a good one. I've installed it and wil ltest it tomorrow, thanks rich.
ahoffmann:
I'm gonna also check whether TrueCrypt would be able to cook pizza... :-)
ahoffmann:
I'm gonna also check whether TrueCrypt would be able to cook pizza... :-)
hey, that would be nice, please tell me ;-)
(hope my sarcastic comment helped, somehow ...)
(hope my sarcastic comment helped, somehow ...)