I have downloaded the Suite to my flash drive - is there any app here that would enable me to encrypt the whole Suite?
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Toucan can encrypt things, as can 7-Zip, WinPT or Gnu Privacy Assistant and possibly others. Thunderbird can encrypt mail.
What most people mean when they ask that question is "can I encrypt the whole drive (or the whole suite)". The answer is yes, but with a caution. The caution is that almost all the ways to encrypt the whole drive require Admin privileges to install, and if you end up in a public Internet Cafe, it is likely you won't have Admin. If you don't think that is an issue, check out http://Truecrypt.org.
The best solution in many ways is the "hardware encryption" available on some "secure" portable drives. The encryption is part of the drive, so no software needs to be installed on the host machine, and you don't have to make any changes in how you use it (other than entering a pass phrase). Among other things this makes it more likely the drive can also be accessed from a Mac or under Linux (though the PortableApps won't run -- but many of the PortableApps have linux versions, and the data will still be usable). They're a bit more expensive.
This question has been discussed a lot. Use the Search function to find more information in these forums.
MC
Actually, many (most?) hardware encryption drives only work in windows, since the password entry app is a windows application. Whereas, TrueCrypt is also available for mac and linux, so is truly cross platform... go figure.
>Actually, many (most?) hardware encryption drives only work in windows, since the password entry app is a windows application.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
I use the Kingston DataTraveler (Secure Privacy Edition) as that was provisioned to me by my employer. I've been using it for over a year now and it works great. They have sizes up to 8 GB right now.
The downside is that it is rather expensive compared to non-hardware encrypted drives and is a little bit slower than the top-end non-encrypted drives.
The big benefit of course is that no one can read ANY of your data, programs, ect without your passphrase. After 10 incorrect attempts the drive automatically deletes all data on the drive.
I now no longer have to worry about any of my personal or financial information being compromised if my USB stick is lost or stolen. To me, it would be worth the extra expense to have this kind of protection/insurance.
-IP
I only know what I've read, and that is mostly marketing stuff.
It does make sense that a locked down computer would not run a random executable. So I guess I would not be surprised to find that launching a GUI would be problematic, even if there were no driver being installed.
I believe I've seen portable drives with buttons or a touch screen for entering the pass phrase. That would solve the problem, but add to the cost.
Once the pass phrase is accepted the portable drive would look like any other portable drive to the operating system. On Linux, if a user can mount a regular USB drive, she could mount a hardware encrypted USB drive, once the pass phrase was entered. That could still be restricted, and should be, on servers or multiuser machines or those with critical functionality.
Most of the time Linux users can run things like Perl, so I'd expect there to be some way to at least run a console app that can submit the pass phrase, assuming of course that userland apps can mount or talk to USB devices. But maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself.
Truecrypt is of course cross-platform, but there's no getting away from the Admin requirement, at least for installing it the first time on Windows (and probably on other platforms). As I said, beyond that it is exactly what is needed.
Anyone want to buy me a complete set of "secure" flash drives, so I can become more familiar with them?
MC