I use OS X at home, and a locked-down Windows XP machine at work. I carry a batch of text and Celtx files between the two places on a flash drive, and I'm looking for a way to keep the contents of that drive encrypted, or at least password-protected on some level that's readable by both the PC and the Mac.
I downloaded TrueCrypt and thought I'd found my solution -- creating an encrypted disk image on the drive. It worked perfectly on the Mac side, but unfortunately it turns out TrueCrypt needs administrator access (which I don't have) to run on the PC. Even its "traveler mode" required admin access.
I don't even need to guard against a determined attacker, just to discourage casual snooping in case I misplace the drive. The drive (Imation Atom 1GB) came with some kind of encryption utility, but it was of course PC-only, and thus useless to me.
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You need to get a flash drive that has some form of password protection built into it and will work on windows and mac, I don't know if one exists.
[U3 will be of no use to you, it's windows only]
You have discovered the problem with truecrypt, Admin required.
I don't even need to guard against a determined attacker, just to discourage casual snooping in case...
I would suggest a password protected ZIP file.
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
I stand corrected
I said:[U3 will be of no use to you, it's windows only]
Apparently there is now a utility that you could put on your mac that will allow you to lock or unlock the Sandisk U3 drive [I don't know about other models]
NOTE, it will NOT allow you to use the U3 Launchpad or it's programs.
It WILL allow you to access the data portion of the drive.
Learn somethin new everyday
Read this article:
U3 removal tool for MAC
http://communities.sandisk.com/sandisk/board/message?board.id=u3&thread....
Don't let the title scare you,
Scroll down to the part that talks about:
You will see three applications:
Launchpad Removal Utility for MAC - removes the U3 LaunchPad.
Password Change - allows you to change the Security password that locks the drive.
Password Enabler-Disabler - allows you to use the Security feature of U3 to lock the drive and prevent unauthorized access.
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
I believe this has been asked many times. Yes, TrueCrypt needs administrator access to be used correctly. That is TrueCrypt's downside for many users. I haven't been able to find one yet.
Hope you do find one.
Na na na, come on!
Well, I did find one solution, but it's pretty hard-core and rather expensive:
https://store.ironkey.com/welcome
A drive with an onboard encryption chip and which apparently has some form of Mac compatibility. It looks very impressive, but also seems like overkill for my particular application. And I'd rather not have to buy yet another drive since I did just buy one.
About the ZIP file, I may give it a shot, but I'd rather not have to zip and unzip everything every time, though, and it also might wreak havoc with the software (Synk) I'm using on the Mac side to synchronize the flash drive with my HD. I'll run some experiments and see how it goes.
I'd rather not have to zip and unzip everything every time
Once you set it up shouldn't drag and drop work?
Tim
[edit: seems it's not as easy as i thought
]
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?
I can afford the use of TrueCrypt, as I am the admin on all the machine at work. It's nice to be a network admin
I have used FreeOTFE and is usable in machines logged without administrative permisions.
Sincerely
Denis J Navas
I have a Sandisk Ti Plus with U3 software and encryption. I am new to portableapps.com, but am already a huge fan and already made a donation. U3 apps are not all open source and since U3 is already obsolete, I would prefer to use menus and apps from protableapps.com. I have already installed the U3 automatic portableapps launcher, and it works great. The only reason I run the U3 application is for the password protection. From the looks of the U3 system, the USB drive is formatted into two partitions (CD and removable drive), the 10MB one for the U3 application which the partition is write protected. I certainly can remove the U3 application and reformat my drive, but then I would not be able to use the password encryption. Is there an equivalent method to format any USB drive into two partitions, one to auto launch an application to allow password encryption protection of the second partition, thus eliminating the need for the U3 application to password protect the flash drive. It would not need to interface with the Ti plus hardware encryption, but any typical flash drive or removable re-writable media. Platform independent (Windows, Linux, OSX) solution would be nice.
Elvis
Home 100% free of the MS Borg since 2005!
Long story short, No
Is there an equivalent method to format any USB drive into two partitions, one to auto launch an application to allow password encryption protection of the second partition, thus eliminating the need for the U3 application to password protect the flash drive
Sorry
But Welcome Elvis to Portableapps.com
Tim
Things have got to get better, they can't get worse, or can they?