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Can I unencrypt encrypted files?

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  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,862 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Anyway, this means that my existing folders survived intact. Do you know whereabouts I'd find the key?

    I think so, but I'm starting to think that it's going to be hard or maybe impossible to import the certificate/key pair. I ~think~ your personal certs and keys are stored in:

    C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Microsoft\SytemCertificates\My\Certificates

    and

    C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Microsoft\SytemCertificates\My\Keys

    respectively. However, when you export certs and keys, they get packaged into a special format (PKCS) so that you can re-import them elsewhere. The files that I find in those folders don't seem to be in any such format, so it doesn't look good.

    Take a look for yourself by using the Certificate Mgmt console - Run, certmgr.msc.

    It has the facility to Import certs, but not export them (that I could find), so presumably that's done via some other EFS utility...
  • fwor wrote: »
    I think so, but I'm starting to think that it's going to be hard or maybe impossible to import the certificate/key pair. I ~think~ your personal certs and keys are stored in:

    C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Microsoft\SytemCertificates\My\Certificates

    and

    C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Microsoft\SytemCertificates\My\Keys

    respectively. However, when you export certs and keys, they get packaged into a special format (PKCS) so that you can re-import them elsewhere. The files that I find in those folders don't seem to be in any such format, so it doesn't look good.

    Take a look for yourself by using the Certificate Mgmt console - Run, certmgr.msc.
    Thanks for that. I've found the certificate and key as you described, and I'll have a look at Certificate Management later today. Meanwhile if anyone else can suggest how to get these working again I'd be very grateful.
    "The trouble with quotations on the Internet is that you never know whether they are genuine" - Charles Dickens
  • bitsandpieces
    bitsandpieces Posts: 1,736 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    That's why you should use Truecrypt. It has a two stage plausible deniability. One, the encrypted data is indistinguishable from noise/blank space and can only be seen if you know it's there to unencrypt in the first place. Second level is that you can have a second container within the container: "it's a fair cop here's my encryption key", while all your REALLY "private" stuff is kept in the second container, which is impossible to detect unless you already have the key to decrypt it.

    There are also concerns about the reliability of Truecrypt's plausible deniability - http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/truecrypts_deni.html At a minimum, if you're relying on this then make sure you're using the latest version of the software. But I'd be cautious about trusting it to much.

    I guess it depends how much effort someone's willing to put into breaking the deniability...
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