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After a month long obstacle course of red tape getting my son’s passport, I’ve decided that it is time to all our important paperwork digitized in case of emergency (flood, fire, etc.). I have to admit, I’m a bit lost where to start with encryption. Can anyone point me to a reliable tutorial?
I use TrueCrypt. It has a mechanism for creating encrypted USB drives. It’s straightforward and intuitive to use. YMMV.
no on truecrypt. it’s no longer supported and hasn’t been for some time.
if you’re running windows 8 or greater, bitlocker is a fairly straight forward means to encrypt a plain standard USB flash drive & it’s free. you can browse YouTube for examples on its use. also strongly recommend you mirror data on at least two separate USB keys and ensure to keep them both up to date with same info as files are added/updated as USB keys will eventually fail just as pc hard drives do. .02…
I too use veracrypt (basically truecrypt). It is easy to use and OS independent unlike something like bitlocker. Security is always an issue and both truecrypt based projects and bitlocker have their flaws but let’s face it, you’re not protecting nuclear launchcodes that could destroy the planet. Both are sufficient for protecting personal data from your average copy paste id thief.
Another great thing about truecrypt is that you can store your files in an archive kind of file (or even a hidden partition if you want to go all James bond) so you can still use the rest of your drive for regular data instead of having a secure deadweight you might never use.
So question, if you buy a pendrive that comes with encryption and password protection, do you tech guys perceive the at as sufficient protection. Notably, I’m using the Kingston Datatraveler Locker with G3 (whatever that is) for secure storage of important material. I do have backups. When I bought mine, you could specify to backup on a cloud of your choosing. Mine isn’t set to do that by choice.
ArkansasFan30 said: ↑
So question, if you buy a pendrive that comes with encryption and password protection, do you tech guys perceive the at as sufficient protection. Notably, I’m using the Kingston Datatraveler Locker with G3 (whatever that is) for secure storage of important material. I do have backups. When I bought mine, you could specify to backup on a cloud of your choosing. Mine isn’t set to do that by choice.
Generally speaking any kind of protection will be a leap over none at all. Even a poor protection will stop your average id thief, the ones that really know their way around computers like true comic-novel-level cyber villains will not need your drive to get to your personal data. Those are rare tho, and the chance of you getting targeted by them unless they have a very good reason to do so will be slim to none.Even without encryption there’s options to hide stuff. Zip a bunch of images, rename it to ‘Bohemian_Rhapsody.mp3’ or if its a small zip ‘Song2.mp3’, dump it in a folder with some of your other (real) music and your average dumb person will think its just another failed corrupted download without giving it a second glance. Believe it or not but hiding something in plain sight like this actually works quite well.
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