opening an encrypted image file on Windows? Linux?

zozo
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
subject says it all...



I want to put critical data on a USB key (or even use the memory card on my cell phone) (birth certificate, credit card data, ss, bank accounts, bla bla) but obviously need to encrypt the damn thing as solidly as possible. So, I would like to put all that stuff in a password protected zip or rar (or both) file, inside of an encrypted disk image (made with Disk Utility on MacOS X) and even rename the suffixes to something like .doc or .txt to throw anyone off...



Now then, while I always have a Mac, there could be a chance that if disaster beckons, I may not have a Mac handy.



Is there any way to access a password protected disk image on Linux or Winblows?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    I do not know about the images, but i think Stuffit can make encrypted Zips that winzip can open. IMO, the problem with encrypted zips are, the strong ones are propriatory while the universal ones are weak. ex: Winzip's encryption is great but only winzip can do it.



    Plus, zips do not give the same prodection as an encrypted disk image. I hope there is a way.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    PGP.



    PGP utilities exist for all platforms, keys can be unbreakable*.



    Quote:

    3.2. Can't you break PGP by trying all of the possible keys?



    This is one of the first questions that people ask when they are first

    introduced to cryptography. They do not understand the size of the

    problem. For the IDEA encryption scheme, a 128 bit key is required.

    Any one of the 2^128 possible combinations would be legal as a key,

    and only that one key would successfully decrypt all message blocks.

    Let's say that you had developed a special purpose chip that could try

    a billion keys per second. This is FAR beyond anything that could

    really be developed today. Let's also say that you could afford to

    throw a billion such chips at the problem at the same time. It would

    still require over 10,000,000,000,000 years to try all of the possible

    128 bit keys. That is something like a thousand times the age of the

    known universe!     While the speed of computers continues to increase and

    their cost decrease at a very rapid pace, it will probably never get

    to the point that IDEA could be broken by the brute force attack.



  • Reply 3 of 6
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    Are the utilities cross-platform so i can move stuff?
  • Reply 4 of 6
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    My suggestion would be pgp too. I know it is certainly on Mac and Windows and I assume there is a version for Linux, it'll just miss one of the algorithms, I always forget which has the royalties though.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jwink3101

    Are the utilities cross-platform so i can move stuff?



    Each of the binaries is platform specific, but they share a common file type...

    you can PGP encrypt emails that are standard text files (though secure)... decode on any platform, provided you have the keys.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    well, yeah, there is GPG which is the opensource, free version.... and the tools are available on all platforms.



    And I guess I could have GPG/PGP utility installers on the USB key as well in case I'm on any platform.



    I just wanted the 'easiest' solution of having a nice Disc Image that mounts, include stuff, close, done... instead of unzipping, modifying or adding, rezipping and encrypting all over again... kinda messy.



    I think only the professional PGP ($$) solution has a an encrypted image option.



    Will look into that too...



    thanks for the suggestions. Any other ideas welcome too..
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