[ale] Fwd: External Hard Drive Encryption

[JD]

On 04/07/2012 09:39 PM, Tod Davis wrote:
> Hi all,
> I need an encryption solution for my external hard drive with
> plug-it-in-anywhere password protection. I need to be able to read/write to it
>  from both Windows and Linux OS machines and without any software installed on
> at least some of the computers. (my work WinXP laptop is locked down so I can't
> install anything).  Will TrueCrypt work for this or is there a better solution?
> 

Encrypted ZIP files are pretty much it.  Just be aware that tools exist to brute
force these trying over a billion passwords per second (on a C2D 5 yrs ago), so
you need a really long, random, passphrase.  I think most computers support
password, encrypted ZIP files.

I'd look into portable apps for those pesky non-Linux systems.

Depending on your underlying requirement, you may want to use variations of
KeePassX/KeePass and store the data encrypted inside the password DB instead,
then having a portable app for almost every platform wouldn't be as suspicious.
 Then again, accessing your password DB from an untrusted computer is dangerous.

Truecrypt is cross-platform, but the file system selected under it may not be.
For example, mounting an ext4 file system under Windows isn't likely. I've never
tried mounting an NTFS FS under Linux from a Truecrypt partition. It definitely
requires admin rights to run, even the portable version.

Encrypted ZIP files are the best answer today.