can someone explain encrypting files?

Question

can someone explain encrypting files to me I have files I would like to keep secret such as numbers, identity, information and such and i know if you right click a file you have the option of encrypting it or compressing it and such but before I encrypt anything I want to know exactly how it works and how to use it

Answer 1

Encryption does not hide files, it just makes the contents unreadable. Many people encrypt their hard drives but the problem is if you are using Windows to encrypt all the files on your HDD the password is saved on the computer. The use of a third party encryption program is what any person should get.



File encryption aka cryptography, is the act of transforming sensitive data through an algorithm to make the file unreadable. Basically data is collected divided into chunks, put through separate algorithms, and put back together.



Example:



Lets say you want to encrypt "123" easy right.

We will first split this string up. (String refers to a instance of text)



So...



1

2

3



Put them through an algorithm

1+ 5 = 6

2 + 4 = 6

(3 + 13) / 8 = 2



Put them back together...

662

Now nobody will know what you wrote down unless they have the algorithm. It is much more complicated, but that is the idea.



Plain Text:

This text is readable...

Encrypted Text:

cMKRSA2qJUm9/8/4Lhstna+k+E0IyClKqCnkiP...





Now there are many forms of encryption:

The most commonly used is AES-256 bit encryption

+++This means there can be up to 32 characters in the password or 2^256 possible combinations

The newest is Diamond2-2048 bit encryption.

+++This means there can be up to 126 characters in the password or 2^2048 possible combinations



The only way to decrypt the file is:

1) If you have the original program that encrypted file,

2) If you have the algorithm used to encrypt the file,

3) You can reverse engineer the program used to encrypt the program in order the file the algorithm.



Even then, it is nearly impossible for an attacker to crack and decrypt the file.

Remember, the longer the key is the longer it will take to crack the file.

Even with these two types it will take 5.5 million years to crack AES (the standard in encryption)

Types of attacks (two most common):

Brute Force and Dictionary attack.



Strong Password:

1) Do not use words (hey, tree, feather, etc.

2) Mix upper/lower -case, with numbers and extra characters (a, A, 1, $)

3) Make the passwords long and unique



Good luck.



Regards,



Dane

Answer 2

Encrypting files means scrambling them so that they are unreadable to anyone unless that person has the password to unscramble them. If you forget the password then they are lost forever. There are many ways to encrypt files and the windows encryption that you are about to use is worthless because if your computer crashes then bam! the files are gone. Or if anyone knows your windows password they can decrypt the files. It's better to encrypt your files using something like winrar and put them on a USB stick or burn them to a special CD or DVD. Get sensitive files OFF your hard drive and keep them on a USB stick instead. www.rarsoft.com is where you can get winrar.

Answer 3

Encrypting is in fact encoding assistance so as that it sounds as though random or feels like gibberish. while spies desire to bypass away messages for different spies they many times encrypt the message so as that if somebody else gets it they won't be waiting to study it. Decrypting is the technique in opposite. The secret agent who's meant to get the message takes it returned to his lodge room, flips open his e book of codes, translate the message, and can then comprehend what it says. Encryption in desktops is many times modern-day in community communications like wireless or connecting to a secure internet internet site so which you would be able to financial business enterprise or save properly. the information is unreadable to everyone different than you and the guard internet site your conversing to, so whether somebody else intercepts your assistance they are able to't make any use of it. you have a key for encrypting and decrypting on your laptop, and the positioning you're connecting to has yet another key for encrypting and decrypting on their laptop. as quickly as the relationship has been prevalent in easy terms the two events conversing can comprehend what the different is asserting. it is likewise available to encrypt person documents or perhaps finished problematic drives interior a working laptop or laptop so as that they can't be accessed without a key, many times a chip on the motherboard or specific USB flashcontinual with the decryption key on it.

Answer 4

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) using an algorithm (called cipher) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information (in cryptography, referred to as ciphertext). In many contexts, the word encryption also implicitly refers to the reverse process, decryption (e.g. “software for encryption” can typically also perform decryption), to make the encrypted information readable again (i.e. to make it unencrypted). So basically encryption scrambles the data and requires a password to unscramble it. Truecrypt can make encrypted "vaults" in files that are only able to be recognized and opened by truecrypt, so you can hide them as well as encrypt them. Truecrypt is free and can be acquired from http://www.truecrypt.org/