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42 Comments
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33...better than password-protected folders, rather... Password-protected passwords never really caught on, for some reason.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27Yes they can. Sparse disk images.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030212055706937 - WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Encrypted disk images are much better than password-protected passwords. You can copy them to any disk, regardless of the filesystem, and they will still function as normal. You can put some serious 128bit AES encryption on them, which is quite difficult to crack. Your porn has never been safer...
- lostngone, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18That would be pretty hard, because he doesn't even have a girlfriend. It would be more effective if you held the gun to his porn collection.
- dotorg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Actually password protected passwords are huge. Thats what the keychain is in OS X.
- totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14"but they only work in Mac OS X."
which makes them even MORE secure ;) - totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9They should mention that when it asks you if you want to save the password in Keychain, to say no. Otherwise it just opens up whenever you click on it.
- mr.hostility, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7There is more of a chance you will lose your cellphone than someone will break into your Mac and then spend 12 months trying to decrypt your disk image. If you use something beyond the standard dictionary, good luck to anyone who tries to break it. (Think pass phrase)
- ElectricSoup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"How do you do this on Windows?"
TrueCrypt - it's open source; it's free.
http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php - Samtherocker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"If I held a gun to your childrens head only demanding that you tell me that information..... your head isnt the best place to store it."
Well at least if I knew them I'd be able to save my kids. If I said, "Oh, I'm sorry but all the details are in an encrypted disk image on my computer" the kids that I don't have would probably be dead.
@lostngone - How would you know?
@PathDaemon - Who are you to say that? - ElectricSoup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Since that doesn't encrypt it, but only shuts other users on the machine out, the directory is only secure for as long as someone can't change the permissions. What if someone booted your machine up in single-user mode? Also, the encrypted disk-image is (relatively) portable. It can be carried on portable media. It can be opened on another machine - provided that's another OS X machine.
- xsuite, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Dude, If I held a gun to your childrens head only demanding that you tell me that information..... your head isnt the best place to store it.
- siMac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I love the way this 'hint' keeps turning up now and again. Hey? Why not use an encrypted disk image to store sensitive information? Wow! I was wondering what an encrypted disk image was for! Brilliant.
- coldfusion1970, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I use them to store online passwords, bank account details and credit card information.
- trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thanks astrosmash, that will be VERY helpful.
- rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4a better way to handle porn.. hmmm, thanks for the tip.
- coldfusion1970, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ Samtherocker
"Yeh, they're secure but dude... I wouldn't store any of that information on my computer no matter how much encryption was protecting the data! The only safe place for that kind of information is your head."
I see what you're saying, but i have a VERY poor memory and a lot of important details to keep confidential.
Its really my only option. - MacPrince, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I only wish that there was a good AES-based disk image standard that worked across platforms. Encrypted disk images in Mac OS X are great, but they only work in Mac OS X.
- 3dom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@xsuite:
if someone can put a gun to your head and coerce you into revealing personal details don't you think they could ask for your password as well? - macslut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That used to be a great feature of OS 9. I remember when OS X came out thinking that they would implement Finder based encryption, but they never did. The Disk Image this is nice, but not nearly as easy as Finder encryption in OS 9.
- 3dom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I use a nice open-source program called TrueCrypt for xp. It's got a variety of encryption standards and hash algorithms to choose from, AES/Triple DES etc. Also offers 'sparse disk' or variable size partitions. And whats more it lets you read and write to the encrypted image in real-time as a mounted drive in explorer. You can get it for free at http://www.truecrypt.org
- streak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To automatically mount an image at login time, just add the image to your Login Items in System Preferences:Accounts. If you've not saved the password in your keychain, you'll be prompted for the password when logging in; otherwise the image will just mount.
- Diganta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Two easy work arounds
1. Target mode
2. Bootable external drive holding down the option key
Or finally, physically remove disk from computer and mount on another system. - streak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can readily unmount the disk image without having to log out.
And you can choose to save the password in your keychain, so it never needs to be entered again, but only if you want this behavior.
Anything else?? - drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3MMM I don't feel confident enough to store information on my computer that needs 128 bit AES encryption. After all if a hacker is smart enough to break into your OS X system then he will probably find a way to gain access to pretty much anything on the system. Just make sure you pick a LONG password for those disk images if you do this. I feel a lot more confident keeping my credit card numbers in my wallet... Passwords if I store them anywhere I store them encrypted on my cellphone because at least for the time being nobody is trying to hack those yet.
Also if you are using this for porn then the age old joke of your wife/girlfriend finding them in the VCR sort of applies here. You will end up encrypting it but then leaving it open and unencrypted so that when they check their email they just see the folder open anyways. - sketchstudios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just use DropDMG, a program that can be downloaded here:
http://c-command.com/dropdmg/
then open up the prog, go to prefrences --> and Check "Encrypt using Passphrase" - enter your desired password you want to use then close.
All thats left for you to do, is drag and drop the files you want to protect/hide into the prog window and it will create a password protected DMG file for you to place somewhere on your harddrive. and even if the prying eyes find it, they would have to get through the password. very handy, highly suggest it :) - rudedogdhc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Or just create a separate keychain for sensitive data and require password access to that keychain. That way you can have multiple edisks each with their own password but only have to remember the password to your sensitive keychain. The downside is that the keychain now becomes the attack vector, but if you choose an extremely tough passphrase for the keychain then it's pretty hard to attack. The converse is trying to remember multiple secrets - the more secrets you have to know the less tough they can be to prevent you from forgetting them.
- mr.hostility, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sparse disks are the way to go to keep encrypted stuff where you want the password to be required every time the "folder" is mounted. Plus I do believe they don't have to be a set size.
- trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -10/+10Too bad disk images can't be a dynamic size.
- wikinerd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0What about creating a hidden folder (assuming the other ppl are tech. illiterate)...
You don't have to encrypt it and unencrypt it, but access to it is still a bit uneasy...
a lot handier than encrypting things
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/17/secure-your-mac-cro ...
(in case you didn't know; you can find terminal in Apps/Utilities.) - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4So the only use for encryption is hiding porn now? Great.
- hkid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2How do you do this on Windows?
Is there a free tool that locks a folder within the Windows User Profile?
Thanks. - Gameflyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"The only downfall of this method is that once you’ve set the password, you’ll never need to enter it again, so long as you’re logged in as you."
Still has some issues, eh? - strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Right click->encrypt
- sjuraud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Here is a guide on MS's sight: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308989 I'm not sure but I'm sure there are some other 3rd party programs that will do something similar. I would probably still opt for encryption over just password protection. You can check on http://www.versiontracker.com/windows/ and look around for something that looks like it's comparable (if you have Windows XP Home as the EFS encryption option is not built in). They have reviews and star ratings that can help you decide if they program is any good or not. You can also get an idea of how good it is (but not a total indicator) by how many times it's been downloaded and how long it's been around. Sorry I wish I had more specific advice, but I'm not a Windows user.
- memnon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1sorry posted in wrong thread, oops
- sjuraud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Uh, yeah what about the numb nuts that had all the Veterans SS-N's and personal info on his laptop that got stolen. There seems to be a lot of important info out there on people's laptops that have no encryption on it at all. All you have to do to make passwords that are memorable as well as hard to crack is to replace vowel's with numerals that look close and then maybe add some number to the front or end of the password. This would make the password infinitely harder to crack using a dictionary attack or brute attack. For instance you could use something like 411d1ggdotc0m (411 + digg with the i replaced with a 1 and the .com with a 0). There are also usb thumb drives that are encrypted as well. Sony sells a fingerprint scanning device (called Puppy) that basically reads your finger prints to unlock the encrypted item (or any field that requires a password). These seem pretty affordable (about $100) for anyone that really needs to have this type of protection. (i.e. government agencies and people that have you personal info on laptop that they can take home and have stolen.)
- zackkitzmiller, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Great for hiding porn. not must else tho.
- anenokoji, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Ummm.... My .02$
chown -R user directory
chmod 700 -R directory
Thats not so bad is it? - fani, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Whats the real point of this. Just use unix dir permissions. chmod 700 should do it.
So, if you log in you can see the files, but others cannot.
I understand using this disk image achieves the same result or am i missing something ? - PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3If you can remember all your credit card and bank account information, you have no right to be on Digg.
- Samtherocker, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4Yeh, they're secure but dude... I wouldn't store any of that information on my computer no matter how much encryption was protecting the data! The only safe place for that kind of information is your head.
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