Hello, I'm new to this forum and also to encryption kinda stuff. So I'm having lot of n00b ?'s .. Googling I found different options for archive encryption like 7-zip, Peazip, freearc which are open source. And different options for file encryption like Axcrypt, Aescrypt, quickcrypt etc. So what is the difference between archive encryption and file encryption? Like I archive a file and password protect by using peazip or 7zip or encrypt the file directly by using axcrypt etc. So could you anyone explain me the difference between encrypting files by above two methods and which is the safest method. And one more question there are also bunch of paid software's for encrypting files, so what will does they offer much which we can do by using open source software's as well..do you think paid softwares will offer more security.. Thank you in advance.. Best Regards.. BK.
One will encrypt & compress your files, the other one will only encrypt your files. Technically, security wise, they shouldn't be any different, but the compressed files would need more hardware power than the ones without compression.
Some of the archive apps use relatively weak encryption. For file encryption, I use GnuPG. Apps like TrueCrypt don't actually encrypt files. They encrypt file containers or partitions. So you need to estimate how much space you'll need before creating the file container or partition. If you run out of space, you need another. And if you don't use all the space, it's wasted.
In addition to the good comments above you might consider the "media filesystem strategy" that holds the encrypted data you are protecting. From a forensic consideration it is much more complete to create a device based backup/storage media to use. By storing encrypted data within a device based encrypted volume the adversary on the "outside" has no knowledge of how large the data stored inside is. Further they have NO idea when the last time you opened/used the volume in any way was ------ > unless of course they have access to the operating system/computer you used to change the data. When you manipulate files on a storage medium saved as "file based" there are changes on the filesystem holding the file based volume, and especially if its a logging filesystem such as NTFS! For me, I almost always save on device based media, and when I don't I make sure not to use a logging filesystem. Further I have software to clean the tracks left outside of any file based volumes so that the host filesystem is clean when I am finished. The above comments have NOTHING to do with the computer you are using but only the flash drive or external hard drive being carried around. The computer issues are another thread.
Hi Palancar, Thank you for this information....I haven't got much knowledge on all the stuff you mentioned..Could you please elaborate more.. what software's provide privilege "media filesystem strategy" which you said..and what software's we can use to clean the traces the tracks..device based media..does that mean a kind of hard encryption device. Thank You,
