1 - I was hoping to use gpg4win to encript my private data to a USB Stick then using explorer open the encripted file as required without having to create a separate unencripted file.
2- I was hoping to be able to take my encripted stick with me and on other machines have a mobile version of gpg4win so that I could see my files as required.
3 - Because it was encripted it would be reasonably safe even if it was stolen as I would be the only one with the information necessary to decript and had the master key.
I so far cannot find this as a means of using gpg4win or am I just a learner who has yet to understand and find the functionality. Or has this not yet been built as part of gpg4win?
Dear Michael,
what you are hoping is possible only partially. You can encrypt files on your usb stick, there’s also a portable verison. You can find it at www.gnupt.de
The encrypted files are safe even if you lose your stick. GPG is particularly helpful when sharing secrets with other parties because it is based on asymmetric encryption.
However, you can NOT just open and close the files without decrypting them into a separate file.
For this I recommend a “whole disk encryption” software. TrueCrypt is a very good tool for this. For my USB stick, I use it together with “PSMenu” which gives you more comfort for mounting and unmounting your stick.
Hi Stefan
Many thanks for your recomendation. I am also looking at
http://www.truecrypt.org/
http://www.safehousesoftware.com/CompareProducts.aspx
http://www.axantum.com/AxCrypt/
Have you tried any of these?
I thought by now this would be common practice, but not yet it seems. I wish to hold my many passwords, links and other personal information somewhere portable and safe. And if I go abroad or to another machine I wish to be able to use my personal and private information without worrying about losing it.
Hi Michael,
from your list I only tried truecrypt. I can say that it’s very stable which is very important for portable drives. Imagine you just unplug accidently without unmounting it propery and you data is corrupted… I’m using it for 5 years now and I never hat corrupted data. In general, with encryption, I’d prefer open source products. You can be sure that security leaks are discovered faster and it doesn’t have any backdoors. And it’s free of course.
You write that you’d like to store passwords etc. Check out this tool: http://keepass.info/
It’s specially made for storing passwords and small files (such as software license keys). It’s also very user friendly, you can organize things in folders, it supports keyboard shortcuts to copy username / password etc.
Hi Stefan
I will definitely look up Keepass next
Best regards
Michael