You may want to encrypt that data to keep it from getting into the wrong hands.
When you encrypt data, you use a special algorithm to scramble the bits that make up that file into nonsensical information, which can be restored to its meaningful state only with the right password.
TrueCrypt is a free, open-source encryption application that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Given the right credentials, TrueCrypt creates a virtual hard drive that reads and writes encrypted files on-the-fly. This hack explains how to encrypt your private files using TrueCrypt on Windows and Linux.
Set Up the Encrypted Volume Location
Here’s how to set up an encrypted virtual disk with
TrueCrypt:
1. Download TrueCrypt from http://truecrypt.org. Install and launch it.
2. Click the Create Volume button to launch a wizard that prepares the encrypted drive location. Choose Create an Encrypted File Container, click Next, and then select Standard TrueCrypt volume and again click Next.
3. On the Volume Location page, click the Select File button, navigate to the location where you want to store your encrypted files, and type a name for it such as C:\Users\adam\Documents\4myeyesonly, as shown in Figure 2-15.
The name (4myeyesonly in this example) isn’t the file you want to encrypt; it’s the container that will store the files you encrypt. Click Next.
Figure 2-15: Create an encrypted volume with TrueCrypt.
4. Choose your encryption algorithm. The curious can flip through the drop-down list and view info on each option, but you can’t go wrong here; the default Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) selection works for most purposes. (Hey, if it works for Top Secret government files,3 it should work for you.) Click Next.
5. Choose the size of the virtual drive — for example, 100MB, as shown in Figure 2-16.
Figure 2-16: Set the size of your encrypted container.
The advantage here is that the file will always look as though it’s exactly 100MB, giving no hint as to the actual size of its contents. Click Next.
6. Choose your volume password. TrueCrypt wants something hard to crack, such as 20 characters with letters and numbers mixed together. The whole point here is to keep snoopers at bay, so make your password a non-dictionary word that’s difficult to guess. Alternatively, you can use a key-file to lock your volume. warning Keep in mind that if you forget your password or your key-file gets corrupted or lost, the files on your TrueCrypt volume will be inaccessible — forever.
7. Format the volume. This part is fun: TrueCrypt gathers random information from your system — including the location of your mouse pointer — to format the file drive location with random data to make it impossible to read. Click the Format button to go ahead with this operation. (Don’t let the word format scare you; you’re not erasing your hard drive, you’re just formatting the drive location file — the 4myeyesonly file in this example — that you just created.)
When the formatting is complete, your encrypted volume location is ready for use.
Store and Retrieve Files from the Encrypted Volume Your TrueCrypt file can hold your highly sensitive files locked up as tight as a drum. Here’s how to get to it:
1. From TrueCrypt, choose Select File, and navigate to the volume file you just created.
2. Select an available drive letter such as X: from the list in TrueCrypt (see Figure 2-17). Figure 2-17:
To mount a TrueCrypt drive, select the file container and an available drive letter.
3. Click the Mount button and enter your volume password. If you enter the correct password, the virtual drive X: will be mounted.
4. Go to Computer. Listed alongside all the other drives on your computer is a new one: Local Disk X:. Drag and drop all your sensitive data to this drive and work from it as you would any other disk.
5. When you finish working with the data, in TrueCrypt, select the mounted drive (X: in this example) and click the Dismount button. The X: drive will no longer be available; all you have left is the 4myeyesonly file you created, which can be dropped onto a thumb drive, emailed to yourself, burned to CD, or placed on your iPod, totally encrypted.
If someone managed to open this file, its contents would be meaningless, indecipherable nonsense. Only a user with TrueCrypt installed and the password or key-file could mount the drive and access the files on it.
TIP Using TrueCrypt you can secure
an entire drive — such as a USB thumb drive. To do so, click Select Device instead of Select File, and choose your thumb drive. You can also install TrueCrypt to the thumb drive.
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