USB drive encryption

zhuanyi

I have a USB drive with Dropbox portable installed on it and since it has some of the data that I'd prefer not to post on public, I would like to know if there is any good encryption software that you could recommend. I use mostly Windows and on some of the machines that I need to plug in the USB drive, I do not have admin rights, so I would need the encryption to run without admin rights and without installation.

I have checked out freeotfe but it seems it is having some trouble running on Windows 7 64 bit as the drivers are not signed, also it needs to format the drive to encrypt it, which is something I do not want to do as I have other files on the USB drive as well.

Patrick

Truecrypt!

It's one of the best out there, http://www.truecrypt.org/ Create a small non-encrypted space with true crypt portable and an encrypted space which can be opened up after authentication

zhuanyi

@StormVZ said: Truecrypt!

Unfortunately I think you will need admin rights to even open the USB drives with Truecrypt.

Patrick

@zhuanyi ah yeah the device driver would need to be installed first http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=non-admin-users

Not sure, gl finding something!

zhuanyi

@StormVZ said: gl finding something!

Thanks!

pubcrawler

Admin rights are pretty much always needed to do something high up near the kernel or device drivers (full disk crypto).

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software

Before full drive crypto became all the rage we used individual file encryption. What comes to mind it PGP, OpenPGP, GnuPG.

Have to be front ends and scripts out there for those to bulk encrypt files and deal with crypto at file open times.

Using one of those almost certainly will not require admin rights.

As for portable app versions of these, OpenPGP and GnuPG likely have portable versions out there. Have fun looking for them :)

SpeedBus

There are a few others, http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ http://www.aescrypt.com/

Both are opensource..

nocom

My recommendation is Secure Star DriveCrypt 1344 Bit Disk Encryption , Windows 7 compatible Version Released Not free but worth every penny. From SecureStar: ''With its Traveller modus functionality, DriveCrypt is the ideal solution to encrypt USB disks and Pen drives without needing to install the software on the computer'' Full disk encryption my tip.

jhadley

I can recommend IronKey - www.ironkey.com - sometimes you can get them cheap on eBay - it's a stick with hardware encryption and physical protection.

zhuanyi

@nocom said: Not free but worth every penny

Price is more than what I paid for the USB key...kinda expensive :)

zhuanyi

@jhadley said: I can recommend IronKey - www.ironkey.com

Have too many keys floating around already so I told myself not to get another one :)

joepie91

@nocom said: My recommendation is Secure Star DriveCrypt 1344 Bit Disk Encryption , Windows 7 compatible Version Released Not free but worth every penny. From SecureStar: ''With its Traveller modus functionality, DriveCrypt is the ideal solution to encrypt USB disks and Pen drives without needing to install the software on the computer'' Full disk encryption my tip.

I would not recommend encryption software that does not allow you to see the source.

nocom

@zhuanyi said: Price is more than what I paid for the USB key...kinda expensive :)

Cheap solution is unique U3 SanDisk usb stick (i have 5of this) auto encrypt with internal personal software inside

Old product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3 New product- if Microsoft get out from BlueScreenOfDeath (joke) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StartKey

Also from sandisk SanDisk SecureAccess software

Anyone have this

pcan

If you use Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise, you can enable bitlocker (right click over the Usb drive icon, then select Enable Bitlocker).

AsadHaider

Axcrypt is pretty good, I've been using that for encrypting data for a while.