CryptoSuite v1.050 Features

I will like to keep a thread like this for every upcoming version where people can list desired features and comments on features I have added. I will re-edit this post with new things as they are added. Not every feature will be added/shown here, only some of them.

This is a picture of the explorer context menu how it will appear in next version. It will all be collapsed under one CryptoSuite menu instead of all in the one main menu.

I hope to have some screenshots of the self extractor soon too.

 

menu seems better like that.
Personally i don't have many software which add a menu, but just in case, it's better to collapse all menu in one line like Winrar and PGP does.

 

Hello,

I have d/l cryptosuite and I think it combines a number of nice features into one product - secure delete, checksum etc... In fact, the checksum feature is VERY easy to use compared to several other pieces of software I've tried. However, I would like to suggest the following....

1. If I am going to encrypt a folder, I would prefer to have all the files encrypt as separate files with their original filenames but with the cse extension (so they could be opened individually or as a folder). This would allow the user to simply enter a password and be done. In other words, I would like the ability to compress them all to one file or NOT.

2. And I'm not exactly sure how safe this is but checkout the program File2file by cryptomathic http://www.cryptomathic.com/file2file/index.html - it stores your password so you only have to enter it once after that unless you choose a different password. If you accidentally type it wrong it will inform you immediately. This is a very nice feature, but again, I don't know if there is some major security issue with it.

3. Referencing the chat, by 'chalkboard' to you mean a drawing board (whiteboard) both people could draw on while chatting? Because THAT would be awesome. I have been looking for an IM with such capabilities.

In any event, thanks for a great product that I'm sure will just get better and better as new features are added.

Have a great day,

Tom

 

Hi Tom, Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions, I am sure Jason will take them on board.

Cheers. Pilli

 

Hi Tom,

1) A somewhat original feature I havn't heard before. I don't really see much advantage to encrypting each to a seperate CSE file. Seem's like more work for the user to me. Maybe you could explain further what you mean to make it clearer.

2) I don't want CryptoSuite to be used lazily like that. I think the best thing you can do in a program like CryptoSuite is to force people to have to enter their passwords when they can and not remember them. Trust me, when someone is snooping around your files you don't want "accidents" to help them

3) Yes a drawing board/chalk board, fully encrypted. I don't know exactly what "features" this will have, it will start off as basic drawing with the mouse with different colours and may expand in the future for shapes and such. This probably won't make it into 1.050, but it may.

Thanks for your kind words. You have a great day too.


-Jason-

 

Here's my two 1.050 feature wishes (but actually Jason knows them already):
- While I like the screenshot with the cascaded context menu, I'd like to be able to additionall have CS NOT display icons in the menu.
- Commandline arguments (checksums, encrypt & decrypt with include/exclude masks, target dir and filename, textfile containing a list of files to process (also for checksums), ...)

Andreas

(
and, as for long-term wishes:
- add PGP-compatible en/decryption
- PGP keyring management
- encrypt/decrypt clipboard content
- virtual drives (mount a cse archive as additional drive)
- and
- so
- on
)

 

CryptoSuite is fast becoming one of my most used programs.
Of course TDS, WormGuard, ProtExplorer, and ProcessGuard are always running, but they are just in the background doing their thing. CryptoSuite I actually use every day.

I have been registered here for a while, but have never posted.
Time to start getting involved.

Gary

 

Hi GarySaved!

Welcome to Wilders!

Please accept your first karma cookie!

GarySaved Gobbling Cookies ->

 

Hi Gary, Good to C'ya!

Regarding new features, encrypted file sharing is top of my list, along with the capability of the host to control individual connections.

 

One feature I would like is a possibility to encrypt files and or folders to an exe file that is password protected.
In effect making a secure file that can be mailed burned to a cd whatever and recovered with the knowledge of the password but without the Crypto Suite application.

 

Hello Jason,

Thanks for the rapid reply

1. One reason to encrypt files individually that immediately pops into my head is the following: Suppose I have a folder full of Word documents that I want encrypted so no one can read them but I only work with them one at a time. It would be nice to be able to encrypt the whole folder but be able to decrypt them individually to work with when I need that certain file. Also, if I want to send different files to different people, I could encrypt them all in a single folder then choose each one to send individually. It seems to allow for much more flexibility to me.

2. I'm not sure I was clear on the 'remembering' your password concept. Normally, the user would have to type their password twice to encrypt a file. This is, in part, to ensure that they didn't make a mistake and then can't get to their own data! However, it is annoying - especially if you choose a long and complicated password, which is always preferable to, say, short and sweet like your name So to accomodate that, the program remembers a single password that you designate but ONLY for comparative purposes. You must still enter a password to encrypt the data every time. IF it matches the password you designated then the file is encrypted with only typing the password once and you are done. If it does not match the designated password then the program makes you type it twice to be sure you didn't perform a typing error. As far as I can tell, it in no way helps a snooper determine anything about the password to your already encrypted data. Again, you would be surprised at how only having to type your password once brings great convenience. Now, if it compromises the security of the program then that greatly outweighs the convenience. The point is that I don't know how the program 'remembers' your designated password or where/how it stores it. If that part is secure then it is simply a welcome convenience feature. I hopes this explains it a little better.

Thanks again and keep up the great work.

Tom

PS - How do I earn a Karma cookie

 

Welcome aboard from me too GarySaved . Have another Karma cookie for taking the wilders plunge .

Regards,
Jade.

 

Heya Jason

Yep, your screenshot is exactly what I meant in my email to you
In that respect, I can understand what Andreas wished.

And I certainly agree with Andreas with respect to commandline, if possible...

I might have a bit different interests than others
My main interests (oops, is that the right word?) are the checksum-features.
I would love to have the possibilities, based upon CS, like NISFileCheck gives.
That means: not only to calculate a checksum of a single file, but to build a database of files and their checksums. And then later run CS again (on-demand) to look for changes.
I absolutely would love if CS has that feature build in in a future release. (or, if not possible for some reason, to give users that possibility via command-line to build it themselves...... ).

Cheers, Jan.

 

Tom, well currently you can encrypt a whole folder of files, or the folder itself. Once the files are in the CSE archive file, you can then go to the decrypt tab and click View Files in Archive after entering your password. Once you see the list of files you can extract the one file you want to write to, or if you just need to view it, you can double click the file in the list to open the program which in turns opens the document. If you want to put an updated file back into that same CSE archive, you simply need to add that file like you usually would, except specify the old CSE filename. This way it finds the same filename in the archive and asks if you want to over-write what is currently in the archive. If you click yes here it will be updated. I will be updating the website soon with this sort of information as it isn't really covered yet.

FanJ, I like the sound of that file checking idea. I do want to add some extra things to the checksum part of CryptoSuite and I think that would be perfect. Don't ask for an ETA on it though.

Some good ideas here, some I have already seen before. I will try and add as many as I can.

-Jason-

 

Hi,
Let me first say that I am a new user of TDS, WG, and PE. They are great products, and I can not envision how I ever got by without them.

I have never used a program like Cryptosuite, and I must say that I am finding from the trial that it is a very useful program. I only have a couple comments (which may be taken with a grain of salt, given my newbiness .

-Great idea for collasping the icons on the right click menu, my right click menu is already crowded.....but this program definately belongs there.
-Not sure if it is feasible, but how about an option for a self extracting executable. I would love to be able to send encrypted files to people who can extract them upon arrival having only the passkey.
-Speaking of transfering files and data securely, the chat feature is a cool idea. Are there future plans to cover other areas of data transfer like email or even FTP?

On a different note, I have had a blast playing with the benchmark feature...I think with a little more tweaking I can break the 29000 mark
Again, congratulations on a great product.

 

Self extracting executables has already been discussed, you can probably find the thread in this forum pretty easily . Encrypted file transfer will be added to chat, it will most likely be set up also so that the HOST can add a group of files for people to download, similar to a FTP server, but of course different at the same time, since all communications are encrypted and there will be other features.

The file transfer will be not be in the pre-xmas release of CryptoSuite though, probably the one after.

-Jason-

 

It would be really nice if there was an option to prevent CryptoSuite from minimizing to the system tray; I would prefer it to simply minimize to the taskbar.

--Jason

 

Well... at the moment I like the balance CryptoSuite has. If you minimize CryptoSuite by clicking on the taskbar button, it minimizes as you want. If you click the minimize button on CryptoSuite's GUI, it minimizes to the tray. So both options are covered at the moment, just takes some time to get used to them.

-Jason-

 

Ah, I didn't even realize that. But it works fine. Thanks!

--Jason

 

Greetings, everyone - I'm new.

Have a question, which may also be a feature request. I'd like to be able to encrypt files on a USB Flash drive and then decrypt/recrypt them on any system - reason being, I only get to use my own computer about 50% of the time, so the rest of the time I'm trying to work on files on any computer I can find in the hospital, none of which contain any kind of decent encryption software (nor can I install ANYTHING, not being an administrator.)

Seems if there was a way I could actually have the encrypt/decrypt software running on the Flash drive itself (perhaps with only the basic tools?) maybe I could do this?

Thanks,
Wily

 

This was mentioned during Beta testing & Jason may have a solution in the near future. Having said that, creating an encrypted executable is one method but then you would need to re-encrypt after doing work on the files I suppose? Which would not be possible if you cannot load / run the encryption programme on any other work station.

 

Hi Jason,

You asked me to post this here to remind you:

I secure delete files often using the right click menu & there is a tiny
inconvenience which I would like to add to my wishlist for future versions.

When you have the 'auto-focus on dialogue box' mouse option turned on, the mouse atomatically focuses on'cancel' instead of 'go'. It would be a great help if you could switch these around so that the mouse will be ready on 'go' to delete the file.

 

I have StealthDisk which makes files 'disappear' so that no-one knows the files even exist on your computer yet alone try and decrypt them. They don't show up in Safemode or any other mode unless you use a hotkey which can be password protected.

Are there plans to do this with CS because what you can't see you can't hack.

 

Hiding files may work for casual computer users, but does the driver (or whatever is hiding those files) stop itself from being removed, etc? I know with Process Guard it is a pretty hard job covering ALL areas, I just hope they have. If you provide a URL to the software I might give it a poke.

Alas with CryptoSuite it doesn't matter if they can see your CSE file, which is the beauty of it. If you use a 20+ character password you will even be safe from governments and large corporations, etc. With CryptoSuite at the moment you can simply just encrypt to a file in the windows directory like c:\windows\temp01.dat or something like that which doesn't look "out of place"

I don't know if hiding the files from the operating system is that good a thing, sure it will fool the average computer user and it sounds like a cool thing, but so will encrypting to some weird file in your windows\system32 directory. The added benefit is that CryptoSuite also protects you extremely well from the professionals.

So with some common sense you can already do a lot of steganography without using any other programs.


-Jason-

 

Re:CryptoSuite v1.050 Self Extractor

Here is a Work in Progress picture of the upcoming self extractor. It is fairly straight forward but I want to see if you guys have any input into it's design.

So when you run the EXE that CryptoSuite generates you will see this screen first, you click on Extract and the "decrypting files" window will show, just like the normal CryptoSuite. Seems OK to me like this, but I want to be sure.

-Jason-