Encryption Software -Drag and Drop to..

WinZip operates in this way:

By specifying the “working folder” and “temp folder” locations in WinZip, it is also possible to ensure that any residual temporary files are placed in a specified folder (e.g., "C:\Temp") which can be wiped with a third-party utility (e.g., R-Wipe&Clean).

For an application to open a decrypted file, it must (by definition) be decrypted and must exist as a file somewhere. Where does WinRAR place the decrypted file?

 

How do you do that? I use axcrypt sometimes and when I right click and decrypt, I have to encrypt it again. Are you saying that for the time that it is decrypted it is not on your hard disk?

 

Winrar places them anywhere I set the working directory.

 

Instead of right clicking and choosing "decrypt", just double click on the file. It will ask for the passphrase and once entered, will decrypt it in memory. When closing the file, it remains encrypted and you do not have to encrypt it again.

 

That is absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for explaining that. this is one of the coolest things I have heard in a while.

 

Your Welcome

Just started using Axcrypt myself - great little app.

 

Are you sure? I'm no AxCrypt expert, but I was under the impression that AxCrypt (along with all other file-level encryption and compression products) writes plaintext copies of open files to a temp folder and then deletes or wipes them when they're closed (after writing any changes back to the encrypted or compressed copy). This would mean that if the power failed or Windows crashed while an encrypted file was open, a plaintext copy would remain on the hard disk and could be recovered.

To test this, I created a text file using Notepad. (I chose Notepad because it doesn't typically create temp files). I encrypted the file using AxCrypt, then I double-clicked on the file, provided the password, opened it, made some editing changes and saved my changes. While the file was open I found a plaintext copy in C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Temp\AxCrypt. As soon as I closed the file the plaintext copy was gone. Comments?

 

I just now am paying attention again to this thread. Dantz is 100% correct in that AxCrypt decrypts to disk and the temp file is then securely erased. It does not decrypt to memory and never has.

Edited to add: It's still great software for single-file encryption.

 

My apologies . I read that when reading about axcrypt before installing. If i find the source again, i will post it.

 

I do not use WinRAR personally, but I suspect that it operates in much the same fashion as AxCrypt or WinZIP: namely, it decrypts to a temporary file on disk (not “into memory”) and then wipes that temporary file when it is closed.

 

Liking Axcrypt, thanks for the posted advice

 

I guess you could always open an axcrypt file in Sandboxie. Wouldn't that be the same as using temporary memory?