Any way to password protect an old image?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by truthseeker, Jul 23, 2008.

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  1. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    I have created a couple of backup image files and forgot to password protect them.

    Is there any way to password protect them after the image process?
     
  2. bledd

    bledd Registered Member

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    you could compress them with 7zip (set to store mode) and add a password

    you'd need to uncompress them with 7zip before restoring them mind
     
  3. jeremyotten

    jeremyotten Registered Member

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    nope. shame isn't it...
     
  4. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Well, you could zip it with a password, then you'd need the pword to unzip to ber able view or otherwise use.
     
  5. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    Ok thanks for the comments. It's a shame I cannot add a password using TI.

    I will use Winrar instead and encrypt them.
     
  6. nemesisdb

    nemesisdb Registered Member

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    the password protection is pretty meaningless anyway as it doesn't encrypt the archive. NTFS permissions would likely work just as well.
     
  7. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    Can any other software do that? Add a password after creation the 'package'?
    e.g. WinRar, WinZip, etc?
     
  8. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Yes, winzip (version 11) encrypts with AES 128 or 256 bit encryption for high security or it can use stardard Zip 2.0 encryption, which isn't very strong security.

    It's user's choice which encryption to use.
     
  9. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    Also AFTER the ZIP-file-creation? Great.
     
  10. bledd

    bledd Registered Member

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    7zip has awesome encryption

    in reality, whats the chances of someone getting hold of your image and knowing what it's for anyway

    very low..
     
  11. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    It does encrypt my archive. And without the password I am unable to open the archive.

    So what do you mean its useless? Are you saying that a person without the password can still view inside the archive? If so, how? Because I am unable to do so, as it asks for a password to open it.
     
  12. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    What do you mean by "isn't very strong security."?

    Do you realise that with a good password, (mine is 17 characters in length) nobody on Earth can break an AES 128 , unless they have a few million years to spare.

    As Xerobank, a regular user here, said:

    17 length, with a pool set of 26+26+10+1, would be ~63^17, or 3.8x10^27. Assuming a blind brute-force attack... If you could try 200 passwords per second (most machines can do about 20 to 100) it would take 615 million billion years to crack the full keyspace. Now if you harnessed a VIA Padlock crypto engine and it was super magic, it might only take 38 million years. And if you wiped out duplicates and bad entropy combos, you might be able to cut your keyspace down to 30 million years. And if you had it cracking on 10,000 machines in parallel, you could do it in 3000 years. And if you cracked randomly, you could have it in 1500 years with a 64% probability.
     
  13. Mike49th

    Mike49th Registered Member

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    Not to minimise the common sense of all the options proposed earlier, but:

    Why don't you backup your unprotected .tib file using TI, but this time using your password.

    Is this too easy or is it my imagination?

    Mike
     
  14. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Yes, you're missing something. Creating a tib file with ATI using a password only forces ATI to require the password to work with the file--there is no incryption of the data; this person is looking for the file to be encrypted, which is very diff.
     
  15. Mike49th

    Mike49th Registered Member

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    Thanks Shieber - but the original post only referred to password protection and the issue around encryption was posted by one of the respondents who spoke about lack of security.
     
  16. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    Mike, my TI image is stored along side another 9 images. So I would need to backup the whole partition and then delete all the other images.
     
  17. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    I encryped the image file using Winrar. It only took 12mins, so that was ok :)
     
  18. Mike49th

    Mike49th Registered Member

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    TruthSeeker - glad the problem is fixed.

    For what it's worth, you can "rebackup" a single .tib file without the need to backup all the other archives. So you could reach the same objective and password protect your one or two .tib files.

    From my "KIS" standpoint, using the TI process would allow you to recover your unprotected image from the protected image by using only the Recovery CD and then do a restore using the Recovery CD as well.

    This will take WinRar out of the picture and maybe simplify a recovery in the future.

    Good Luck anyway, and in the meantime - your problem is solved.
     
  19. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    I have no idea what you said :p You cannot be seriously suggesting to restore the image, and then backup the partition again? That would take a lot longer than using Winrar to encrypt it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2008
  20. Mike49th

    Mike49th Registered Member

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    Sorry for my bad English
     
  21. ex3

    ex3 Registered Member

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    how about if you put all 9 of your images in true crypt container
     
  22. truthseeker

    truthseeker Former Poster

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    Yeah, that would work. Cheers big ears :)
     
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