[Tutor] how to manage an encrypted file?

[Wayne]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com>wrote:

> "Tim Golden" <mail at timgolden.me.uk> wrote
>
>> encrypted text file? I want to store passwords and associated contact
>>> information in a file and feel confident that if the file is stolen
>>> the information couldn't be read.
>>>
>>
>> If you're on Windows, just encrypt the file under Explorer.
>>
>
> Although that's not very secure: if you copy it to a non NTFS filesystem
> since Windows will, by default, helpfully unencrypt it for you...
>
> There is some stuff on MSDN that tells how to make Windows encryption work
> sensibly but the defaults make it kind of pointless.
> (Actually, I haven't tried this on XP, but certainly on Win2000 the default
> encryption was a joke. If anyone can confirm that XP fixes it I might start
> using it again.)


I used a program called AxCrypt (  http://www.axantum.com/AxCrypt/ ) that
seemed to work alright.

If you want the most basic encryption you could simply XOR the file. It's
fairly easy to break, though, because the same character patterns will be
present as with your original file.

HTH,
Wayne


-- 
To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called
gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness,
every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and
exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t. - Primo Levi
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