Computers & Electronics

How do you encrypt files?

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Sep 21, 2012
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How do you encrypt files?

My internal HHD is getting full, so I'm thinking of uploading a few thousand GBs to my Google drive.

But, I'm a little paranoid, and want to first encrypt them first. How do you encrypt files though? I've tried both Winrar and 7-Zip, but 7-ZIP completely bypass Winrar's encrpytion, and the 7-zip password doesn't seem to do much, since I can open and extract the zip without entering the password.
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aescrypt
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Dinujan wrote: 7-zip password doesn't seem to do much, since I can open and extract the zip without entering the password.
You are definitely doing something wrong.

First of all with 7-Zip you can create an archive either in native format (7z extension) or standard zip archive (and some others). Both of these options support encryption but with native format you can even encrypt file names.
When you chose to encrypt using standard zip method keep in mind that file names in the archives are not encrypted and can be looked at(that's probably why you've got impression that files are not encrypted. Shortly speaking you can browse file names) But actual files content IS encrypted and third party won't be able easily extract anything from such archive. If you decide to encrypt using standard zip use AES-256 encryption as native zip encryption method has serious flaws.
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TrueCrypt, but you're definitely doing something wrong because 7zip should have no problem with encrypting files.
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eugene_2005 wrote: You are definitely doing something wrong.

First of all with 7-Zip you can create an archive either in native format (7z extension) or standard zip archive (and some others). Both of these options support encryption but with native format you can even encrypt file names.
When you chose to encrypt using standard zip method keep in mind that file names in the archives are not encrypted and can be looked at(that's probably why you've got impression that files are not encrypted. Shortly speaking you can browse file names) But actual files content IS encrypted and third party won't be able easily extract anything from such archive. If you decide to encrypt using standard zip use AES-256 encryption as native zip encryption method has serious flaws.
Turns out 7zip has been zipping as .zip instead of .7z

I just tried encrypting a file as 7zip, and got the desired result.

So what's better 7zip AES or TrueCrypt 7.1a?
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Dinujan wrote: So what's better 7zip AES or TrueCrypt 7.1a?
Wrong question. AES is an encryption method where TrueCrypt is an encryption tool. It's like asking "Do I use hammer or nail to hammer a nail?" Actually you use both.
I am not familiar with TrueCrypt but I am pretty sure you can encrypt files using AES encryption method in there.
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Dinujan wrote: Turns out 7zip has been zipping as .zip instead of .7z

I just tried encrypting a file as 7zip, and got the desired result.

So what's better 7zip AES or TrueCrypt 7.1a?
IMO, 7zip for small individual/groups of files, while TrueCrypt is more useful for larger amounts of data. Also depends on how you plan on accessing/using your data though. TrueCrypt is useful in that you can mount a container and just use it as a normal drive, however I'm not sure how or if that could work with Google Drive without having you download and reupload the entire container.
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Hard drive getting full... wanting to upload " a few thousand GBs" uhhh... how many?

Why would you go cloud if you are encrypting? You can't no access to individual files. Why not just buy external hard drives to put the stuff on?


Paying for cloud space on a few TBs does not make sense especially if you are encrypting it all.
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If I'm using CLI I occasionally use GPG. It's great for server backups.
Otherwise most of my stuff is done via TrueCrypt.
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7zip with AES-256. Encrypt filenames too.

Save as .7z, not .zip
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Perhaps look at Veracrypt. It supposedly fixes some of the vulnerabilities in TrueCrypt.

all the best.
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The two products I trust when it comes to encryption are GnuPG (Linux) and PGP Desktop Professional v9.12 (Windows). Symantec bought PGP version 10 onward and lowered the encryption bar to comply with U.S. export standards which are pathetically out of date. Even domestic U.S. standards from FIPS and DoD haven't been updated in over 20 years. Guess the feds like to keep encryption to a minimum. Not a fan of TrueCrypt so can't say much about it.

Also, you're better off with WDE (Whole Drive Encryption) than .zip files.
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MrRockstar wrote: The two products I trust when it comes to encryption are GnuPG (Linux) and PGP Desktop Professional v9.12 (Windows). Symantec bought PGP version 10 onward and lowered the encryption bar to comply with U.S. export standards which are pathetically out of date. Even domestic U.S. standards from FIPS and DoD haven't been updated in over 20 years. Guess the feds like to keep encryption to a minimum. Not a fan of TrueCrypt so can't say much about it.

Also, you're better off with WDE (Whole Drive Encryption) than .zip files.
My question with these with WDE, is how can I access individual files? By using .zip (or .7z), I'm able to download sections of what I want, instead of the whole 2TB drive.
neverhaveiever wrote: Hard drive getting full... wanting to upload " a few thousand GBs" uhhh... how many?

Why would you go cloud if you are encrypting? You can't no access to individual files. Why not just buy external hard drives to put the stuff on?


Paying for cloud space on a few TBs does not make sense especially if you are encrypting it all.
students get unlimited space on Google Drive. With a file size limit of 5TB. I'm only going to store things I want to keep, but don't use on a regular basis. Which will save me, ~1TB of space.




damn....encrypting takes a long time. 8 threads, 4.25GHz each, and still only running at 10MB/s.
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Dinujan wrote: My question with these with WDE, is how can I access individual files? By using .zip (or .7z), I'm able to download sections of what I want, instead of the whole 2TB drive.



students get unlimited space on Google Drive. With a file size limit of 5TB. I'm only going to store things I want to keep, but don't use on a regular basis. Which will save me, ~1TB of space.




damn....encrypting takes a long time. 8 threads, 4.25GHz each, and still only running at 10MB/s.
It does, but if you're using AES most processors have hardware acceleration which makes it go a tad faster.
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Scycotic wrote: It does, but if you're using AES most processors have hardware acceleration which makes it go a tad faster.
AES with a 1000 character password. I'm guessing my bottleneck is the HHD or lack of RAM then. (i7 3820 + 8GB of RAM).

Might overclock my CPU past 5.5GHz, while it's encrypting to see it makes a difference
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Dinujan wrote: My internal HHD is getting full, so I'm thinking of uploading a few thousand GBs to my Google drive.
Given the way you describe your problem, the correct solution is to get an additional internal/external drive.
Dinujan wrote: damn....encrypting takes a long time. 8 threads, 4.25GHz each, and still only running at 10MB/s.
With 7zip you are not just encrypting, but also compressing, so hardware AES is not going to help here much.
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xalex0 wrote: With 7zip you are not just encrypting, but also compressing, so hardware AES is not going to help here much.
You can store files without any kind compression. 7Zip just becomes a container.
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ToNIX wrote: You can store files without any kind compression. 7Zip just becomes a container.
Of course, you can set compression level to "store", but I suspect that's wasn't done in this case.

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