Tag Archives: encryption

Cloud Privacy, Cloud Storage, Encrypt Dropbox Folder, Encryption, Security, TrueCrypt

Protect Your Privacy with TrueCrypt – Part 2

October 3, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In this post, we’ll describe how to encrypt a small folder using TrueCrypt, a free and very powerful encryption tool. You can put anything you want in this folder, of course, but the point of this exercise is to have something that is extremely safe from prying eyes that will allow you to keep your passwords or online account numbers private. Once you create this folder, you can put text files, documents…basically whatever you want to, as long as the total size is not larger than the folder you create. We’ll explain that later.

1. Download and install Truecrypt. You can install Truecrypt or run it from a folder. You could even keep the Truecrypt folder inside your Dropbox folder in order to make it available on every computer that you access Dropbox with.

2. Run Truecrypt. Here is the window that comes up at the start:

Photo of TrueCrypt menu — **Click on the Create Volume button or click on Volumes then Create New Volume.**

A volume is something that only Truecrypt can open. As you will notice later on, there is no three letter file designation to the folder/file/volume that you create. No other program will recognize it, not Windows, not Notepad, only Truecrypt.

Menu for TrueCrypt — **For the next few screens, you’ll just accept the default settings. Here, choose ‘Create an encrypted file container’ then click Next.**

Menu for TrueCrypt 3 — **Click Next to start creating a Standard TrueCrypt volume.**

Don’t get confused here. You’re not choosing a file or folder, you are really creating a volume somewhere you are on your computer. We chose our Desktop but you’re on your own here. All you do in this menu is simply type in a name, make up anything you want. You can even use a three letter file name to make this Truecrypt volume look like another kind of file. The default program for that type of file, .avi or .mp3 for instance, will NOT be able to open it, remember? Only Truecrypt can open this file.

Photo of TrueCrypt — **You’re on your own here but we chose a 1 MB file, lots of room for our password text file.**

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Move your mouse all over this menu for a minute or two then click Format. Truecrypt will then format the volume that you just made, creating, more or less, a separate drive on your computer. That drive is controlled by Truecrypt, nothing else. Windows doesn’t know anything about it, other than it takes up space. It cannot open the volume and will not even suggest a program that might open it.

13.

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That’s it for now. This post is long enough but we’ve accomplished a lot. You now know how to create a locked volume that can be opened only by you. Even if someone gets access to your computer or your cloud folder, they will not be able to see what is inside this folder. Cool huh?

Next time, we’ll show you how to use this volume. Basically, you just mount it using your password, open it then drop files into it and then dismount it. Once you dismount it, it is locked again.

Thanks for reading!

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Dropbox, Encrypt Dropbox Folder

Encrypt your Dropbox folder with TrueCrypt

October 1, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In our last post, we encrypted a text document. Here’s that article in case you missed it: Using Notepad ++ to Encrypt a Text File This post is a continuation of that theme, keeping your cloud files safe from prying eyes. Whose prying eyes? The employees and management of the various cloud companies, that’s who. Now that Microsoft has banned photos containing nudity in their SkyDrive folders, you can be certain that employees/managers/bots scan your files for offending data. Hell, your government is probably scanning those folders as well.

TrueCrypt is free. You can get it here: TrueCrypt . Once you download TrueCrypt, install it. While it is a very powerful program, Truecrypt is mostly based on passwords. If you lose your various TrueCrypt passwords, you’re totally out of luck so anything you do with this program must be done using a password that you won’t ever forget. You’ve been warned.

The concept of this whole thing is to make an encrypted folder on your computer which will become your Dropbox folder. Since that folder is synced with your online Dropbox folder, it is automatically encrypted. TIME OUT! In the middle of writing this post we discovered that the guide we were using simply doesn’t work. We managed to encrypt the Dropbox folder on one of our computers but not the online Dropbox folder. We’re back to square one here but we’ll update this post a.s.a.p. Yes, this is a short post but it’s been three days since our last one and we didn’t want anyone to think we’re sleeping on the job. We’re not. Things get in the way every now and then!

We’re back!

OK, we figured it out. Although the system we started to describe is in different places all over the Internet, it does not work. What follows is the only way to secure your Dropbox contents from prying eyes. You can use the same technique on other cloud services, SkyDrive for instance, and rest assured that no one but you can access your material there…provided you remember the password.

Before we get into the how-to section of this post, we want to explain some principles about what we’re going to do here. You have to know how Dropbox works before you can understand this whole thing.

The Basics

1. There are as many Dropbox folders as there are computers that access the same account…plus one. There is one folder on the Dropbox site itself plus the same folder, more or less, on every computer that you use for the same Dropbox account.

2. If you put a file, let’s say a photo or a video, into your Dropbox folder on one computer, that computer uploads the file to your online Dropbox folder.

3. When you turn on another computer that has access to the same Dropbox account, the file that was just uploaded to the online Dropbox folder is downloaded to the current computer’s Dropbox folder. If you change a fileThis is what syncing is all about, right?

The Problem:

1. When you change a file, Windows notes the change by telling us that the file was modified at such and such a time/date. If you modify a file, Dropbox notices this and updates that file all by itself. The next time you start your other computer(s), Dropbox sees that the version of a file isn’t the same as the one that it has in its online folder. As soon as it sees the discrepancy, Dropbox downloads the newer version of the file to whatever computer you are currently using.

2. When you are using Truecrypt, any folder you open is hidden, more or less, from Windows. In effect, that file is open only in Truecrypt, as if it was another operating system. You open Truecrypt then open the encrypted folder, add or subtract data from it and then close it before you close Truecrypt. When Truecrypt closes the folder (called dismounting), it does not update Windows on what changes have been made. As far as Windows knows, nothing has changed.

3. Do you see the problem? If Windows doesn’t tell Dropbox that the folder has changed, Dropbox doesn’t know to sync that file with either its own online version of that folder or the other versions of the same folder on any other computer that you use. Ah, there’s the rub.

The Solution:

1. There’s only one step to this solution. Instead of letting Dropbox sync your encrypted folder by itself, you have to send the folder to Dropbox each time you add or subtract anything from it. Basically, you copy and paste the changed folder into your current computer’s Dropbox folder. Only then will Dropbox feed the newly changed folder up to your online folder. In theory, this is how it should work. While you’re mulling all of this over, we’re trying to check that this is exactly what happens. Next post, we’ll let you know if our theory worked. Wish us luck!

Thanks for reading!

Cloud Privacy, Encrypt a Text File

Privacy in the Cloud – Your personal files are not private or safe.

September 27, 2012 Computers Made Simple 7 Comments

If you think your files on Dropbox or Microsoft’s Skydrive are private, think again. They’re not. Microsoft announced this week that nude photos, whether real or drawings, cartoons or paintings, cannot be uploaded to your Skydrive folder…even if your folder is set to Private. How would they know unless they look at everything users upload to their folder? As shocking as this may seem, you have to realize that anything you upload to the Internet can be seen by someone else.

Dropbox, one of our favorite free cloud companies, recently had a security lapse. Anyone could log in to any account without using a password. This went on for about four hours. In our estimation, cloud storage is neither safe nor private. Here’s how to take care of the private part. We’re going to walk you through a couple of options, one simple, one a bit more complicated, which you can use to keep your stuff away from prying eyes.

The concept: If you want to keep something private on your computer, you can use a password to protect the computer or you can encrypt the file or folder itself. When you put data up to the cloud, you assume that your password will keep it private. As we’ve seen with Microsoft and Dropbox, a password won’t keep anyone who works for the cloud company out of your stuff. Therefore, you are encouraged to encrypt it. Here’s an easy way to do that:

1. Download and install Notepad ++ . Get it here: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ Notepad ++ is free and much more powerful than the standard Notepad that comes with any version of Windows. Most of you should download the installer version which is highlighted in this image:

Photo of Notepad ++ Download Page — **Download the Installer version unless you know what you’re doing with the others.**

2. Open Notepad ++ and type a few words. For now, it doesn’t matter what you type, even one letter will do. Here’s our example. You will notice that Notepad ++ is a bit more spartan than the regular Notepad but, believe us, it is far more powerful.

Photo of Test Text in Notepad ++ — **Sample text file.**

3. At the top, look for the word ‘Plugins’. Click on it then click on NppCrypt then choose and click on Encrypt. Three steps represented in this image:

Photo of Notepad ++ Menu — **Plugins,NppCrypt then Encrypt.**

4. Make sure that you only have ONE file open, the one you want to encrypt. This is important. If you have another text file open, you might encrypt it as well as the current file. Notepad ++ will attempt to prevent this, using this menu, but mistakes can happen, right?

5. You’ll see a faint line of open documents in the second and third photos above. Click on your open files and close them down, one by one. Then click on Yes, simply because you only have one file open and you want to encrypt it. This menu will come up:

Photo of Encryption Dialogue — **Enter your password here. Write it down so you don’t forget it or make it very easy to remember.**

6. You’re entered the password once but Notepad ++ will ask you to enter it again. This is normal with encryption, basically making sure you didn’t commit a typo the first time.

Photo of Second Encryption Menu — **Enter the password again.**

7. As you will see in this next photo, the text is not encrypted. You can’t read the words until you decrypt the file.

Photo of Encrypted Text File — ***You can’t read the words but you can edit this encrypted file. Be careful.***

TIP: The file that you have just encrypted is just like any other text file except that you can’t read it. You can delete text, add text, whatever you want. Therefore, make sure you save the file immediately and don’t make any changes in it. Why? Because you don’t know what you will be deleting if you accidentally backspace once. Sure, you can add text but it won’t be encrypted unless you re-encrypt the file again. Here is an image of a file that is partially encrypted.

Photo of Partially Encrypted Text File — **We added the last part to show you what a partially Encrypted text document looks like.**

As you can see, you are able to encrypt part of a text document or all of it. If you edit something that you have already encrypted, you have to re-encrypt it. We hope that makes sense. Save the file as normal, either on your computer or directly to your Skydrive or Dropbox folder. Make sure you remember the password. You can’t retrieve that password from anywhere else except your brain!

Tip: The file you have just created looks like any other text file. You cannot tell that it is encrypted until you open it. Notepad ++ will open the file but you won’t be able to read anything until you decrypt it. (Plugins, NppCrypt, decrypt then enter the password.) On the bright side, no one else can read it either!

This is step one on your journey to protect your privacy. If you don’t care about who reads your personal messages or notes, don’t worry about all of this. We feel that what we do or write or photograph is no one’s business but our’s. Employees do snoop, we guarantee it. Nothing in the cloud is private.

Next time, we’ll tell you how to create an encrypted folder that will keep prying eyes out of your cloud container. Once you put something into that encrypted folder, no one can see it without a password.

Thanks for reading!

Email, Encryption, Privacy, Security

Hushmail Email Security

December 8, 2011 Computers Made Simple

If you’re concerned about email security, my next few posts will discuss some aspects that you might want to consider. My feeling is that email is far less secure than it used to be, even compared to five or ten years ago. Whether or not anyone is reading your email, you might want to think about some way of securing your private and/or business communications from prying eyes. If you are already involved in illicit activity, you are likely more advanced in this area than I am. All of this is new territory for me. We’ll learn together.

My first stop on this journey is a Canadian web-mail site, Hushmail. Hushmail advertises itself as a ‘free secure email’ provider. It is free and somewhat secure. There is a pro version for use on your own domain but we’ll stick with the free version for now.

Hushmail encrypts your email to other Hushmail users, plain and simple. Once you are logged in, Hushmail provides an encrypted connection. The key to this connection is your password. If, for some reason, your Internet connection is being watched, logging-in to Hushmail will protect everything for you. Your emails are stored on the Hushmail site in encrypted form. Your passphrase isn’t stored anywhere by Hushmail. If you lose your passphrase, you can’t recover it…at least not through Hushmail. It all sounds quite secure, right? It is but Hushmail is very open about its limitations.

I don’t think anyone really reads the EULAs or FAQs that abound in the computer world. Hushmail’s FAQ was both incredibly easy to read and extremely honest. Take some time to read it and you’ll start to understand the limitations of a web-based email security system. Here’s a link to Hushmail’s FAQ: http://www.hushmail.com/about/technology/security/

Hushmail is perfect for the average person who wants a bit of privacy and simplicity with their free web-based email. There are ways to encrypt a regular email on Hotmail or Gmail and I’ll get to those later but for now, Hushmail is worth investigating.

The key to Hushmail is the passphrase. Sure, the email and the connection to Hushmail are encrypted but how can you keep your passphrase secure? That’s the problem, right? If you can manage to come up with a mnemonic passphrase, something that is easy for you to remember but ridiculously hard for anyone else to crack, you’re fine. If you have to write the passphrase down, things get substantially less secure. That’s for you to work out but I’ve got some tips here in another post.

Lastly, if you think that you’re immune to all of this and that no one really cares about your email, check out this PBS documentary. It’s an eye-opener: Nova: The New Thought Police

Thanks for reading!

Encryption, Hidden Windows Tricks, Security, Word

Email Encryption – Part 2

November 3, 2011 Computers Made Simple

Email encryption is rapidly becoming more of a necessity than a whim. With governments constantly scanning virtually everything you do or say, even the simplest, most innocent email can sometimes lead to problems for the sender or receiver. What is the easiest way to encrypt an email? I described on fairly simple way in this post, and this time, I’ll tell you about something that might even be simpler.

Microsoft Word includes the option to encrypt any document that you create. Here’s the menu where you choose to encrypt your document and lock it with a password:

The Menu for Word Encryption and Password — Choose 'Encrypt Document'

Once you have chosen to ‘Encrypt Document’, this is the menu that pops up:

The Password Entry Menu — This is where you type a strong password.

Make sure you do two things when you get to this point. First, make sure you create a strong password. Don’t use a word or a phrase, make sure it’s either mnemonic (sounds like something you would remember) or long. Always use both letters (caps and small), numbers as well as symbols. A 10-14 digit length is adequate.

Second, make sure you write it down somewhere AND encrypt that, too. If you lose the password, you’re out of luck as far as retrieving your document. Word doesn’t save your password somewhere, it just encrypts the file and encrypts the password too.

Is this a safe way to encrypt something? Well, unless you are a spy, this is about as good as it gets. As long as you choose a password that is at least 10 digits long AND use both upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols, you’re safe.

OK, so this part is done. Just attach the encrypted document to your email and send it off. But, you ask, how do you send the password? Well, you can send several innocent emails with clues in them which would lead the recipient to the password or you could do that in person, on the phone or via SMS text messages. Whatever you do, make sure that you take as much care with transmitting the password as you do with encrypting the Word document.

If you use Notepad++, you can install the SecurePad plugin to encrypt and lock the whole document or parts of it with a password. Notepad++ is free and tiny to install. This seems like a good, free alternative, specially if your recipient doesn’t use Word.

Sending encrypted documents isn’t illegal…yet. Personally, I don’t like the idea of nameless government/police types reading what I write to my friends. Not only that, a lost laptop opens everything up to a thief (unless you’ve encrypted your whole hard drive), including all of your saved messages. For individuals concerned with privacy, encryption isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment or make suggestions.

a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun