how to keep files 100% secure & protected

[dsleesman]

What ways do you guys keep your files safe from prying eyes?

like, for example, if you make digital backups of confidential files...


-encryption (w/ Windows XP)?

-passwords to open files?

-3rd party encryption programs?

-or do you NOT store ANYTHING confidential on your harddrive?

 

[ScottMac]

Put 'em on a floppy (Zip, CD, whatever) ....then put 'em in a vault.

If they're on a machine, they're vulnerable ... especially if the machine is on a network, and especially if that network connects to the Internet in any way, form, or fashion.

After that, the convienience factor kicks in. Encryption is OK, but the government has the keys to pretty much everything (or the horsepower, if not the keys). Since most folks don't use hard passwords ('cause when they do, they forget 'em), most stuff is subject to being whacked by librarys of passwords.

JMHO

Scott

 

[IJump]

Originally posted by: ScottMac
Put 'em on a floppy (Zip, CD, whatever) ....then put 'em in a vault.

If they're on a machine, they're vulnerable ... especially if the machine is on a network, and especially if that network connects to the Internet in any way, form, or fashion.

After that, the convienience factor kicks in. Encryption is OK, but the government has the keys to pretty much everything (or the horsepower, if not the keys). Since most folks don't use hard passwords ('cause when they do, they forget 'em), most stuff is subject to being whacked by librarys of passwords.

JMHO

Scott

The only 100% way to keep them secure is not to have them.......

 

[Nothinman]

Given enough time any files you have can be opened by anyone. All encryption can be bruteforced or cracked and word/excel/etc doc passwords are very weak.

I don't mean to discourage you from using them, hell 64-bit RC5 has been being bruteforced by thousands of machines via distributed.net since early 1998 (or maybe late 1997 not sure) and they still havn't found the key to the message they're cracking. Put the files on removable media encrypted (can't use XP encryption for this, gpg or pgp are your best bet IMHO) and put the keys on seperate removable media and keep them in seperate equally secure places. If I can get a hold of they encryption keys the encryption is pointless.

 

[Workin']

Put the files on removable media encrypted (can't use XP encryption for this, gpg or pgp are your best bet IMHO) and put the keys on seperate removable media and keep them in seperate equally secure places. If I can get a hold of they encryption keys the encryption is pointless.

I know some people who use PGP, and they keep their public and private keyrings on their local hard drive. They say that it doesn't matter if someone gets the keyring, because without knowing their 16 character randomly generated passphrase (strong password, like 4Rcd57JH5gUsq786) they can't decrypt the file anyways.

Anyone know if that's true or not?

 

[NicColt]

>for example, if you make digital backups of confidential files...

Just compress them with winrar v3 and put a password in it and burn two copies on 2 diff cdrw. Winrar 3 is now using the AES-128 Standard Encryption. So it's quite secure.

"Assuming that one could build a machine that could recover a DES key in a second (i.e., try 255 keys per second), then it would take that machine approximately 149 thousand-billion (149 trillion) years to crack a 128-bit AES key."

 

[sean2002]

320 bit blowfish encryption will do just fine