InstantCrypt 2.2.1 / Portable InstantCrypt 2.2.1 Released

InstantCrypt is proud to present version 2.2.1 of InstantCrypt, coming now as InstantCrypt 2.2.1 and Portable InstantCrypt 2.2.1.

InstantCrypt is the Easy-to-Use front end for GPG/GnuPG that works with all e-mail clients and your web mail. I tried to design it in a way that an inexperience user get start encrypting/decrypting within 30 minutes, maybe even 20 minutes.

Download it from www.instantcrypt.com/downloads.

New features:

a) The two zip-file versions were reduced to one and called Portable InstantCrypt. The download size was reduced to 3.1 MB (footprint unpacked: about 5.5 MB plus the user files you create).
b) InstantCrypt can decode TNEF files, that is files named Winmail.dat or Att...dat, which are sometimes sent by Microsoft products (Outlook, Microsoft Exchange server). If someone uses Outlook and sends you this attachment, this new feature can save you a lot of hassle.
c) User Interface improved for file imports (drag-drop/copy-paste)
d) Improvements under the hood. (I hope I did not introduce new bugs.)

Enjoy and give me feedback!

(To those who gave me feedback before (you know who you are!) thank you so much!)

Yours,
InstantCrypt

 

as you can see, the portable zip file got corrupted
the header of PK has additional chars.

 

Thanks! I never noticed that, and I am not an expert in these file formats. I did some experimenting, and found this out: the prepended sequence, 'string(31) "Portable_InstantCrypt_2.2.1.zip".' before 'PK..." is not part of the file that resides on the server (here what the file on the server looks like):




It is added during the download process: it happened when I downloaded it with Firefox and and again with IExplorer, clicking on the download button in the Instantcrypt website. It did not seem to affect the unpacking/extracting of the zip file in any way. Did you have problems unpacking the file?

However, it did *not* happen, when I downloaded the file by just entering its URL into browser window. So, my current idea is that this is something that the download manager or whatever manages the download does regularly and that this does not constitute a corruption. I am using PHP on the server to manage the download process.

Well, you made me curious. Maybe there is an expert out there that knows more about this?

I hope this did not affect your hopefully pleasant InstantCrypt experience!

Yours,
InstantCrypt

 

Corrupted Portable InstantCrypt 2.2.1 file

Dear dRag0nMa,

It was indeed a bug, and the bug is fixed.

Background:

After I got reports in another thread that people had problems unzipping the file (which I did not on my machine), I researched the problem and was able to fix it.

In case anybody else ever runs into the problem: The bug was: My php downloadscript prepended the string 'string(31) "Portable_InstantCrypt_2.1.1.zip".' (45 bytes) and shortened the file by the same number of bytes at the end. Reason: I had left a command "var_dump($filename)", used during debugging, in my script, and that must have done the evil deed. Now that I commented it out, the bug is gone.
​

dRag0nMa, thank you so much for your post. Without it, I would not even have known where to start looking.

I apologize to you (and others, who may have had problems) for the inconvenience.

InstantCrypt

 

I gave the last version of InstantCrypt a try, and I found it very easy to use. I do not use e-mail encryption very much at the present time because i do not have much use for it. That is not to say i will not have use of it in the near future as maybe my work could require it. I've been using TrueCrpyt for several years, and i have a basic understanding of how encryption works. My understanding of encryption is only of basic user knowledge. I found disk encryption very easy to use, but more difficult when applying it to e-mail. Here is my question for you. Is there a way in which your software could have an extra option so that the sender can encrypt their message so that the receiver does not have to have InstantCrypt installed on their machine? None of my friends or colleagues have InstantCrypt installed on their machines, or even know what it is. Most of them already have Winrar or Winzip installed on their machines. Is it possible to integrate an option for creating encrypted archives with InstantCrypt so that the message can still be decrypted if the receiver has something like Winrar or Winzip installed on their machine? If so, then would it be a desirable function to add to InstantCrypt? It may seem like a silly question knowing i could just use Winrar or Winzip to accomplish the same thing. I'm just wondering if it would be worth investing time into or does that defeat the purpose of your software altogether? I probably would not even have to ask this question if i was more knowledgeable on the fine mechanics of encryption.

 

Dear Cutting_Edgetech,

thank you for your interest!

Unfortunately, the answer to your question is no. WinRar and Winzip are file archive and compression utilities, and do not do the asymmetric encryption that InstantCrypt does. (They may do symmetric encryption, the kind where you have to put in a password and need the same password to decipher it.) To read InstantCrypt-encrypted messages, you need a PGP-standard compatible program - it does not have to be InstantCrypt. PGP is one, programs building on the Bouncy Castle could do the trick too.

Sorry, if you want to do InstantCrypt type encryption, you have to get one of these programs. I wrote InstantCrypt so people can have a program that is easy to install and to use and that they can point their friends to. I tried to make it as easy on the user as I could, so maybe you can persuade them to try it?

Good luck,
InstantCrypt

 

Ok, so as long as the receiver has a form of PGP on their machine then they can still decrypt the message. Well, i was not aware of that. Thank you for your reply!

 

InstantCrypt 2.3 released!

Hi, inspired by these discussions I made further improvements and published them today as InstantCrypt 2.3:

Now you can encrypt-to-self, i.e., always make an additional encryption to the signing key. This is the new default setting. I tried to make some improvements on the interface to confuse the user less, e.g., in the very beginning newly created or imported keys show up in the key boxes by themselves so that the user does not have to wonder. Also, I tried to make the user interface more robust.

Good luck to you our there!
InstantCrypt