Perfect for encrypting any personal data on your PC

rjcb23

If you, like me, have all your statements saved on your computer then hopefully you will appreciate this that I have just come across.

Yadadisk is a little computer program that when run in the folder with "sensitive" data, will encrypt it using a password you define.

It uses the worlds strongest public encryption alogorhythm, AES which will make any documents, pictures, spreadhseets, *anything* unreadable to those without the password - (its so secure that I should point out that if you lose your password your data is gone forever!!!)

Read about it here: http://www.yadabyte.com/yadadisk.htm
or download it here: http://www.yadabyte.com/downloads/YadaDisk_Bin.zip

lipidicman

OK, but I prefer truecrypt as you can mount the file and data is encrypted on the fly. You can have a 400GB truecrypt partition. Imagine encrypting/decrypting all that data every time!

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Still this is truly portable so for some it might be just the job, thanks

wolfman

Just been trying it out. Had written something similar/basic myself using RC4 encryption in a command prompt. This is much easier to use though, and arguably more secure. Perfect for my Shuffle (I keep personal files etc... on it besides just music). Thanks.

Ken68

Hi Rj......how does this relate to Internet Options...Advanced..Security..."do not save encrypted data to disk"......I have it ticked but think the default is to allow.Odd!!

Chippy_Minton

Ken68 wrote:

Hi Rj......how does this relate to Internet Options...Advanced..Security..."do not save encrypted data to disk"......I have it ticked but think the default is to allow.Odd!!

Separate thing entirely. When you visit a secure web site (https://) the data between your computer and the web site is encrypted with SSL. This option tells Internet Explorer not to save the decrypted web pages in Temporary Internet Files.

See this article for more information.

nickmack

rjcb23 wrote:

It uses the worlds strongest public encryption alogorhythm, AES which will make any documents, pictures, spreadhseets, *anything* unreadable to those without the password - (its so secure that I should point out that if you lose your password your data is gone forever!!!)

I suspect there is a weakness in 128 bit keys for the AES algorithm, hence why the NSA declared 192 bit or greater should be used for Top Secret documents.

It has also been recently found to be vunerable to side channel attacks in some circumstances, which although does not 'crack' the cipher, can leak data.

Saying that AES has been adopted as the US standard now and using 192 bit keys would be practically unbreakable.

Remember encryption is only as strong as the weakest element. 99% of the time, this is the password. Make sure you choose a strong one. Use both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols in as random order as you can, don't include any dictionary words.

WestieFan

Hoping somebody here can help?
I tried out the Yadadisk thing today, on a Win98 machine (work pc) and it seemed to work fine, very pleased.
As I have been trying to get Truecrypt to work on a flash drive and haven't been able to figure it out, I thought Yadadisk will be the perfect solution.

I copied Yadadisk on to pendrive and then added folder I wanted to protect.
The window came up saying it was encrypting, then Yadadisk icon came up in place of my folder. All going well so far.......

Later, I put flash drive into another pc (WinXP - home pc) and clicked on the icon which had appeared in place of my folder. I got a window up with a list of programs, asking me which one I wanted to open with. I clicked on 'cancel' and somehow the encrypted folder disappeared! I have searched everywhere and can't find it.
No harm done as it is still on hard drive at work but can anybody tell me what I did wrong?

I use Truecrypt normally, but can't figure out how to get that to work on flashdrive either........... :huh: :huh:

rjcb23

Hi Westie,

it seems like you are clicking on the resulting .yda file - i should have pointed out that to decrypt your files you run the yadadisk.exe again and enter you password (just the once this time) - it will then decrypt your files and you habve them back again!

hope this helps

WestieFan

You are right I did click on the .yda file. I tried to run the .exe after that but it told me there were no files to decrypt. I am at that machine again tomorrow so will try again. I am thinking that maybe it didn't encrypt properly in the first place, as I didn't have time to check it before I left.


Thanks for advice, will post back if I get it to work. :think:

Bob63

Just a thought about these 3rd party encryption products...

Do you know who Yadabyte are? They have no contact details, no "About us" on their website, yet you are trusting them to provide encryption for sensitive personal details on your disk. For all you know they could well have installed a back-door into your software that gives them full access to your data. I'm not saying they have, I know nothing about this company in fact, but that's the problem - I know nothing about them. They have no credibility, therefore IMHO they should not be trusted.

You think that having clear data on your PC is a risk, yet having unknown encryption software like this can be a much higher risk and is possibly worse than having no encryption at all. It makes you sloppy, it makes you complacent because you think that everything is safe when in fact it might be less safe than it was before because the software has a direct hotline to the criminals running the company. Like I say, this is not a dig at Yadabyte, I really do know nothing about them, it is justa warning that you should never trust the unknown.

If you want to encrypt data then make sure you use a known, trusted company. Use somebody recommended in the PC magazines. And make sure you use a very long and unfeasibly convoluted master password otherwise encryption is worth nothing.

Mike

joshm_2

I have been using AxCrypt which is quite nice - integrates into the Windoze shell and so on. It's an open source/GNU jobbie so the source code is there for all to see...