Simple, Useful, and Free tool: TrueCrypt, Crypting Software
Darko on January 27th, 2008
Truecrypt is one of the most vital tools that any geek should have.
TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. In plain English, Truecrypt will create encrypted drives that you can mount hide your data and dismount in just a few seconds.
Run the program and click on Create Volume
-Select the “Create a standard TrueCrypt volume”
-Select the path and filename of the new drive
-Selecting the encryption algorithm is a very simple. TrueCrypt Can crypt your data with 8 different algorithms, but any of the algorithms will offer you high level protection. Here’s an interesting excerpt I found about what algorithm to choose:
First of all, if speed is your thing than you need to seriously
consider the container type. File containers will typically be slower
than entire encrypted partitions. A *lot* slower in some cases. This
decision alone will have a much bigger impact on throughput than
algorithm choice.That said, speed comparisons are going to be system dependant and
arbitrary. Any flat comparison might be misleading. And I think the
differences are going to be so minute in the real world that they’re
insignificant. I’ll offer a specific opinion later on, but first some
examples of why they’re arbitrary.Key size shouldn’t directly directly impact speed, but it may change
the algorithm’s “rank” among its constituents from a 32 bit to a 64 bit
environment.Your specific usage can also affect speed. Encryption almost always
takes more clock cycles than decryption. For some algorithms the
difference is more pronounced. If your activity is more “write
oriented” you might want to consider an algorithm with a
better encrypt/decrypt “ratio”.There’s a lot of other little gotchas that might make one algorithm
perform better than another on your system, and with your usage. But if
you really *must* know which algorithms are considered “faster”…Rijndael (AES) and Twofish are two of the best performers on a
“standardized” Pentium Pro, in a standardized implementation. Twofish
is slightly faster at encryption, but Rijndael takes the checkered in
key setup. I think overall, Rijndael would be the “winner” in a
standard usage scenario. CAST is not so far behind these two. I’d say
you’d be good with any of the three. On the other end, 3DES is probably
going to be one of the slowest.FWIW, if you get down to the nitpicking “what if” of the thing, Twofish
is thought to be slightly more secure than Rijndael too.
So select the one you prefer
-Choose the drive size. This depends on the amount of data you want to hold inside the drive. I recommand that before selecting the size, put all the applications and data you want to store on the drive inside a folder and select the size of the drive based on the size of that folder. You might want to have a bit of free space for future modifications. So if the folder size is 20 MB, create a 30 MB drive…..
-Selecting a password is the most important task. You need to have a strong password, that can be immuned to brute force attacks and any kind of decrypting methods. The password should have letters(a b c), characters(!@#) and numbers (1 2 3).
-Now, all you have to do is format the drive
Of course there are many more options you can try but that the quick way to do it.
I should also mention that Truecrypt has lots of command line options and is a completly portable application
TrueCrypt: Official Website
Downloads Page
Direct Links to latest stable version - 4.3a:
Windows Vista/XP/2000/2003
Linux distributions:
OpenSuSE 10.2 x86
OpenSuSE 10.3 x86
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS x86
Ubuntu 7.04 x86
Ubuntu 7.04 x64 (64-bit)
Ubuntu 7.10 x86
Ubuntu 7.10 x64 (64-bit)
Source Code
