Is Multi encryption possible ?

is it possible or even safe to encrypt a file or folder and then follow up by putting this inside another encrypted archive thereby creating multi levels of security. is this practical or safe or would the encrypted files somehow cause problems decrypting or possible corruption. assuming its possible how many times can it be done before redundancy sets in.

Gazzer

 

It is possible to do it without any problem, as many times as you want. I'm not sure how will you benefit from it, though... I think it's better to pick a good, well implemented encryption algorithm and use it once.

 

Unless the encryption is badly implemented or uses some weak algorithm that easily broken, it's usually one of the stronger components of the overall package. It's far more likely that the encryption would be bypassed by compromising the system it runs on, especially if it's Windows.

 

Safe yes, practical no. Many encryption algorithms are secure, the weakness comes from their implementation and user error. In my opinion you should worry about what applications will be using the data stored within that container if your entire system is not encrypted. Going back to my remarks on human error, it wouldn't make sense to encrypt a file 10 different times with 10 different keys only to open it in word/excel/adobe and have local unencrypted markers and temporary files saved onto your system.

 

Multi encryption is not enough. You must have some type of self-destruct mechanism in the event that your enemy tries brute force.

In my setup, I have both destruction password and partition destroyer mechanisms.

 

Worth to mention is the fact that it's protection against 'rookie'.
Others probably will do raw image sector-by-sector of entire hard drive before they do anything with your disk.

To avoid this kind of situation there should be also mechanism in encryption software which detects that entire hard drive is scanning/imaging (before mount - this one which is not mounted) and in that case do destruction of key/partition. In daily usage if you would like to do cold image backup - before that you would have to disable this feature from obvious reasons

 

How will this help you against an adversary imaging your computer and attempting to decrypt the data later (that's what law enforcement does, btw)?

 

I think that self-destruct mechanism will work also in the image.