Hi

I have been studying the problems of encrypting sensitive data and holding it securely

The whole subject is fraught with exagerated stupendous claims and ranks contradictions. You seem to create more problems than you solve

There are many encryption apps around (eg Cryptainer, Winzip etc). whilst they all claim benfits for AES 128bit/256bit encryoption and how it would take all the worlds computers time equivalent to the age of the universe to decrypt a file blah blah. This is hype hype.

But what do you end up with - yes a file that no one else can read - true, but anyon else with malicious intent can easily find the file (if it is reasonably large say 20MB or greater) and simply delete it

Its even worse than that because, as I discovered, the very nature of the encryption process required the file to remain completely undamaged. I went in and altered one bit of a byte using a hex editor. That was enough to make the file unreadable. HDs are not 100% reliable and used advanced for of error correction dring the read write process. We all know that HD sectors can degrade or become damaged but DOS takes care of this and the whole system doesnt coming crqashing down

IN DOS you cannot hide a file (yes on windows explorer you can trivially hide a file but its still available in DOS viewer.
Conversely I am told by other users that it is possible to hide files under Unix/Linux

Its possible to hid a small file say 10k inside a jpg piccie - called steganography

Currently I keep my confidential stuff on a new rarely used Thumb drive and then deposit that drive in a safety deposit box with my other crucial stuff

I spoke with Cryptainer and they wouldnt admit to the above security problem - they are not responsible for hardware - like the ostrich with head where the sun dont shine but I also questioned how a user could be sure about the integrity of a supplier like Cryptainer, afterll they could have a disgruntled employee put a malicious time bomb in the app that disabled your file after several years - what catastrophic damage that could do??

just cos Im paranoid doesnt make me wrong

Currently I stick with winzip encryption and break my folders size down into small individually encrypted files - its messy but at least my eggs arent all in one basket.

Then the question arises what shall I do in 10 years time when my thumb drive is beginning to die on me??

I want to be like the pharoahs and still have my work around me 4000 years later or is that too much to ask

What will you do in 10 months time when your thumb drive is beginning to die on you?

You are trying to protect against people reading your data. If you corrupt a byte or delete the encrypted container then this does not enable a malicious person to read your data. A sensible backup strategy is always a requirement.

Then stick with open source, like truecrypt.

Most likely thing to corrupt or delete your files is a virus or a hardware failure or an os crash or just human error.

I agree with all your comments above. The point I am really trying to make is that the whole topic of data security is greatly overhyped and not really discussed in depth without the BS.

I have every sympathy for laypeople who are worried about privacy, identity theft, big brother, government databases, smart ID cards containing your bio data

It was only recently that a CD containing sensitive pension data for 25,000 people in the uk was lost in the post (presumed stolen)

None of us really knows how many databases there are containing our information. Although we have the data protection act which gives you the right to see and dispute any personal data held against you on any particular database. But you can only dispute it if you know about it. What about the covert DBs that you dont know about. Anyone who has a credit card or a mortgage or insurance will certainly have al manner of data stored against him. Credit rating agencies have a store of info built up against the very house that you live in (which may be very detrimental and relating to a previous occupant)
Trying to get that corrected virtually requires a court order - a loophole whereby the residence is credit rated rather than the individual.


Whether any of these DBs are encrypted is unlikely - after all they have to be live to support continuous access - and decrypting every time would slow everything down. So its possible for malicious agents to get you data. Systems are being hacked all the time. At present its mostly for the challenge but its becomeing increasingly hostile

Thumbs drives failing in 10 months? not heard that one. Mine is 5 years old and has been through the wash machine 3 times and still works fine

I do understand that they suffer from access fatigue and are not reliable for use as a portable OS for example (except for emrgency booting and system repair). Its all on google. but its amazing how the industry kept quiet about that problem (like talking about someone with AIDS). Same applies to CDs and DVDs fading in 6 months

The CD / DVD problem was found to be due to the glue used on labels people were putting on their discs. In that that problem was discovered years ago the problem may have been corrected by now. Regardless, I find felt tip pens work just fine.

I've got plenty of old CD backups that are no longer readable, none of which had labels on.
Probably cheap CDs, admittedly...
I stick with hard disk backups now, and my trusty tin foil hat.