My business requires me to safeguard the security of certain files. For years I have used
Encrypted Magic Folders (EMF) from PC-Magic to encrypt those files, and to hide them from the view of an interloper. I loved it, because files were always encrypted on disk and yet were fully accessible to applications. However, when I upgraded to Vista 64, the new EMF crashed my system so completely that it was unbootable even in safe mode. I tried it twice, recovered twice with some difficulty, and gave up on EMF.
In the meantime I had heard about
TrueCrypt, an open-source disk encryption package for Windows and Linux. It's free! I must admit that after I downloaded it, I needed some time to get my mind around it.
Here are the basics:
- Using the TrueCrypt application you create a large "container" file on your system, larger than you will need to hold your encrypted files. It can be on any read/write disk, even a memory stick, and is initially filled with random data.
- The container file can be copied, moved, deleted, or renamed just like any other file. It's not fragile.
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