This article is going to show you how you can create a secure data safe on your system using the Open Source program True Crypt. You can use the safe to store personal files or information that no one but you or authorized users can access.
True Crypt makes it very easy to encrypt almost any storage device, be it a hard drive, partitions, usb Flash drives, or just a custom part of a device used to store data.
Once everything is setup you mount the True Crypt whenever you need to access the data. This is done by entering a password into the True Crypt application that you have selected during creation of the encrypted container.
This is actually the only password that you have to remember, everything else can be kept in the encrypted container for safety reasons. A big advantage is the fact that you can start any application from the container once it is mounted including torrent and ftp clients, Usenet software, email programs or web browsers to name a few possibilities.
True Crypt is available for Linux and several Windows editions including all versions from Windows XP onwards. Please download the software from the location above and install it afterwards.
The only other thing that you need is free space on a hard drive or a storage device. I would suggest an usb Flash drive or memory key for instance. I have for instance encrypted my secondary hard drive completely using the software. That is 320 Gigabytes of data that is encrypted by the software.
To create a data safe do the following:
So, where are the advantages of this method over tools that work like password safes? The main advantage is that you can not only store passwords in the encrypted container but also files and everything else that you can think off. Just move the files inside and no one can access them unless they have access to the password.
As I said earlier True Crypt works with big hard drives and there is no visible loss in speed during read and write operations. The devices work as usual once mounted. You could for instance run your favorite torrent client from that drive saving those torrents on it as well.
AdvertisementPlease click on the following link to open the newsletter signup page: Ghacks Newsletter Sign up
Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.
I have been using True Crypt for a few months now and it is simply awesome, btw I’m using version 4.3 now.
I agree, I have been using also for about 6 months and it is really great. The only problem I had was when I tried to encrypt on a compressed hard drive; that didn’t work. But other than that it just works!
I use the “auto-mount devices” function, so the volume is mounted at startup. The password to open the TC container is provided automatically by the credential manager system of my PC. I use a HP notebook with fingerprint reader, so once I logon to XP, the credential manager can automatically provide TC with the password (this saves me from typing it every time I logon).