Encoding a USB

[Rwy in Sight]

As some of you have seen on the torch light thread in PPRuNed bashes I have a USB key on my key ring. I need to encode it/protected in case I lost the key. Any suggestions on the programs/apps to use. I am looking for protection to deter someone open the file by finding a code rather a high level encryption to protect company secrets from NSA, or the EU intelligence service.

[rgbrock1]

As some of you have seen on the torch light thread in PPRuNed bashes I have a USB key on my key ring. I need to encode it/protected in case I lost the key. Any suggestions on the programs/apps to use. I am looking for protection to deter someone open the file by finding a code rather a high level encryption to protect company secrets from NSA, or the EU intelligence service.

The answer to your dilemma probably lies here:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-pas ... easy-ways/

[Rwy in Sight]

rgbrock1 ,

Very useful link. Thanks a lot.

[ian16th]

If you only need to use your USB stick on Windows systems, and you will have Admin access to those Windows systems, there are several free products that will work.

But all that I know of need you to have a copy of the Encrypt/Decrypt program on the systems where you need to copy the files to.

I've used Private Disk Light for years now.

This is one of the products that creates a logical encrypted disk partition.

Outside of the encrypted partition, I have a copy of the program itself. This I install on the system that I am visiting and then access the encrypted disk partition on my USB stick.

The shortcoming is if you cannot install the program on the system you are visiting, but if the owner of that system wants the data that you are transporting, he should cooperate.

Download Private Disk Light.

[Rwy in Sight]

Thanks for the advice ian16th. However I do like the flexibility of rgbrock1 of solution which is independent from the other computer.

[wgw2]

http://www.pendriveapps.com has pointers to a whole lot of alledgedly portable Windows applications (YMMV, Windows on my main machine only gets booted once a month to keep patches and anti-virus up to date).

If you don't mind something extremely minimal, take a look at the unix-family bcrypt command-line utility which can be found at http://bcrypt.sourceforge.net/ and which has been ported to Win32. It encrypts just one file, so if you have more you'll probably want to package them into an archive first then encrypt the archive. Under Windows, just extract contents of its downloaded zip archive and copy the exe and dll files to wherever you want to execute them from. I use it myself under Linux in the same sort of circumstances you're considering.

[Rwy in Sight]

WGW,

I have already followed rgbrock1 recommendation mainly because the volume is small but there are some files to protect: id card, driving license, my degrees, so it looks ok but I will keep an eye on how it works in various computers. However I will keep you idea should I decide to go LInux.
Without you going on details what kind of files did you want to encode and carrying around? Maybe I would need to add some on my list.

[wgw2]

RiS,
Financial and family issues, and any data I upload as backup when away from home.
WGW

[19downbubble]

Somewhat late to the party, but you could put a copy of, say, 7-zip on there and simply save each file as an encrypted self-unzipping archive. You just need the file itself if you want to read it, and 7-zip if you want to edit and resave it.

[OFSO]

Preventing a casual finder or thief reading your data: put some innocuous photographs on the drive, rename the files you want to protect "EMPTY" and set the text in them to the same colour as the background. Then (if it's under a WIN OS) set up a fake properties screen with only the storage for the photos listed.

Yes very easily broken of course, but the majority of people I know wouldn't think to look further. (Obviously I have stupid friends, yes I know).

[Rwy in Sight]

Thanks for the idea OFSO, It took some reading to understand particularly the fake properties listed. The problem is that I have the docs on PDF.

[ian16th]

Thanks for the idea OFSO, It took some reading to understand particularly the fake properties listed. The problem is that I have the docs on PDF.

RiS
Did you create the PDF files?

Some PDF creating programs have a password protect capability.

[Rwy in Sight]

The files were created after the documents were scanned. To be honest I did not think about encoding the files. I will investigate that but I have to file the suitable app for my mobile (android).