Encrypting files or folders
Encrypting can be used to restrict access to files or folders, if an unauthorized user tries to open or move encrypted files or folders will be prevented from reading them.
To encrypt a file or folder:
Right click the file or folder and select properties, Click Advanced and then select the Encrypt contents to secure data check box.
Note: you can encrypt files or folders on NTFS file system only.

this way can failed sometimes = if the Password is short,
but there are programs made just for Encrypting like this one :

you can download and try Dekart Secrets Keeper V 3.11 here:




Description of programe :



This post has been edited by aminzzlink: Jul 18 2005, 06:10 PM

I had some text files encrypted a while back, but I discovered that anyone could still open them by simply opening them from the recent documents thing on word. I guess that is sort of how it works, so point being; dont be an idiot when your trying to protect stuff.

You can find Microsoft's explanation of the Windows encryption system here. That article is aimed mainly at XP Professional users, but the same encryption system works on all of the versions of NT and its descendents, as far as I know.

Some points, translated into real English:

The Windows Encryption system, EFS, is intended to be used with NTFS permissions. The permissions are intended to prevent unauthorized access through normal Windows procedures, and EFS is intended mainly to prevent access by people who have gained physical access to the system, and are attempting to use low-level procedures to bypass the permissions. Neither is a substitute for the other.

Unlike third-party password-based encryptions systems, EPS is intended to be transparent to the legitimate user. Once a user has logged on to Windows, he needs no additional password or log-on to access the encrypted files or folders, if he has appropriate permissions. There are free and paid third-party encryption systems for password-protecting files and folders. I use AxCrypt, a free one, and am perfectly satisfied with it.

EFS cannot be used with NTFS file compression. If a person attempts to encrypt a compressed file, it will be automatically decompressed. If I remember correctly, if he tries to compress an encrypted file, he will get some kind of error message.

Encrypted files will become unencrypted if moved to a non-NTFS volume, but not if they are moved to an unencrypted folder on NTFS.

Certain files, such as system files, cannot be encrypted.

Encryption does not protect against directory listing or deletion by unauthorized personnel. It only protects the internal contents of the file or folder from being read.

Winzip can prove the best way to encrypt the files. The encryption is almost unbreakable. But the only disadvantage is it extracts the file every time it opens it to the temp folder. So make sure to close the file you are reading/using first and then close the winzip file, this ensures the file will be deleted from the temp folder after use.

yeah, you have to keep the password long enough so that while you still remember it, it's hard to be decyphered.

Like I have said before (http://www.astahost.com/index.php?showtopic=7453&pid=49048&st=10&#entry49048) EFS (the encryption that Windows uses)=GARBAGE. The only thing that EFS does is passify the poor unsupecting user into thinking they are safe using such fore mentioned garbage.

The problem lies in how the key can be recovered. Upon creation of an encryption certificate, the administrator of the computer is automatically given a recovery key. This basically means that if some poor sap looses their password to the encrypted data, they are not completely screwed. The administrator can come back and recover the data. The problem is that the administror password can be broken very easily.

This is not to even say what if the user does not have a password when loging into Windows, such is the case in a default install. In this case you have done nothing but waste extra CPU cycles encrypting data that is completely open to the world anyway.

If you have something that you don't want anyone to see use a third party software package that uses at least AES 256 bit encryption (and not winzip either!!!)