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Encrypt USB for Windows + Mac

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graycat
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:09 pm    Post subject: Encrypt USB for Windows + Mac Reply with quote

evening all

does anyone know of any software that I can use to encrypt a usb pen drive and use from both a windows machine and a Mac?

Situation is I've got a Imation pen drive that has a 2gb partition encrypted using their windows only software containing the usual kind of documents etc that you'd expect to find on their (coke's secret forumla, the colonel's finger licking good recipe etc). If I'm working on my Mac I have to boot up a windows VMWare machine, mount the drive, run the app, copy the data to the mac or whatever and then reverse the process. Bit of a pain as you can imagine.

I've heard trucrypt might be the solution to my problems so I've got a copy to play with but any other suggestions would be great!

Cheers all
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capi
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:46 pm    Post subject: Re: Encrypt USB for Windows + Mac Reply with quote

graycat wrote:
I've heard trucrypt might be the solution to my problems so I've got a copy to play with but any other suggestions would be great!

Truecrypt is precisely what I was going to suggest Smile
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Fire Ant
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 4:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Graycat,

PGP will do the job as well. I use this for my Mac lapper and Windows box at work.

Matt_s
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graycat
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

cheers, matt_s. Is that the freeware version or one of the pay-to-play variants?
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Fire Ant
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Graycat,

30 day trial for PGP - http://www.pgp.com/downloads/desktoptrial/desktoptrial2.html

I do run a fully licensed version of PGP as it has Whole Disk Encryption, but I also use TrueCrypt.

Matt_s
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graycat
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just a quick update on this in case anyone is interested.

Using Trucrypt I created a 2Gb file / container / vault, reformatted my usb stick, moved the 2Gb container over and put a copy of the various trucrypt apps so can be used from there.

Have tested it out on the Windows boxes and just finished with the Macs and it worked pretty well. Smile
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susr
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You may want to test out Truecrypt a bit before you rely on it. Last time I checked, Truecrypt will corrupt data if you write files to a container on a USB drive in Windows. I did some searching and discovered a forum post on forums.truecrypt.org where the blame was placed on how Windows handles USB operations.

I measured the corruption with a hash program called md5summer. The problem would occur only sometimes, but if I transferred many files at a time, it would happen to several files every time.

I copied the same files to the same container located on an IDE disk and the files kept their integrity. I then copied the container to the USB drive and everything was OK.

This was a year or so ago, so this may have been resolved, but I didn't see any mention of a fix for this in the changelog.
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graycat
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cheers for the info, susr. do you have the link to the forum post at all?
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susr
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

graycat wrote:
Cheers for the info, susr. do you have the link to the forum post at all?


I tried for a while, but I can't find it anymore. (I also couldn't find any other posts regarding this specific problem)

I tested it out Yesterday and Today, and it still gives me problems with version 5.0, however 6.1a seems to run much better.

With 5.0 there is a problem with about 10% or so of the files transferred. With 6.1a, there was 1 corrupted transfer immediately after upgrading Yesterday, which is really confusing because since then I haven't been able to reproduce the problem with 6.1a.

btw I'm using XP SP3 and SP2 on two different Dell Optiplex GX620s, and two different brand USB flash drives.
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capi
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is disturbing indeed. I would urge you to please post about these problems in the Truecrypt forums, to let the developers know of the issue and that it is still happening.

I'm sure they'd appreciate hearing any troubleshooting information you may provide, such as the conditions under which the problem occurs, if you are able to reproduce it, and so on.
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