Securing a USB stick

With there having been some fairly high-publicity incidents involving
people losing unencrypted USB sticks with sensitive information, I had
expected that Internet would now be full of explanations of how to do a
good job of encrypting files on them. But not that I can find.

I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:

1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
stick;

2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
otherwise in question;

3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.

Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?

--
Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley wrote:
> With there having been some fairly high-publicity incidents involving
> people losing unencrypted USB sticks with sensitive information, I had
> expected that Internet would now be full of explanations of how to do a
> good job of encrypting files on them. But not that I can find.
>
> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
>
> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
> stick;
>
> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
> otherwise in question;
>
> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
>
> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?
>
> --
> Stephen Poley

Check AxCrypt

http://axcrypt.axantum.com/

Jon

On 2 Sep 2006 11:30:36 -0700, "Jon" <> wrote:

>Stephen Poley wrote:
>> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
>> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
>>
>> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
>> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
>> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
>> stick;
>>
>> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
>> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
>> otherwise in question;
>>
>> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
>> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?

>Check AxCrypt
>
>http://axcrypt.axantum.com/

Thanks - I'll give it a try.

--
Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley

On 2 Sep 2006 11:30:36 -0700, "Jon" <> wrote:

>Stephen Poley wrote:
>> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
>> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
>>
>> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
>> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
>> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
>> stick;
>>
>> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
>> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
>> otherwise in question;
>>
>> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
>> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?

>
>Check AxCrypt
>
>http://axcrypt.axantum.com/

Reading the "How to Use" and "Registry" sections there, it looks to me
very much as if this program also must be installed on every computer on
which it is used. Or have I missed something?

--
Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley wrote:
> On 2 Sep 2006 11:30:36 -0700, "Jon" <> wrote:
>
> >Stephen Poley wrote:
> >> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
> >> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
> >>
> >> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
> >> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
> >> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
> >> stick;
> >>
> >> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
> >> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
> >> otherwise in question;
> >>
> >> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
> >> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
> >>
> >> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?
>
> >
> >Check AxCrypt
> >
> >http://axcrypt.axantum.com/
>
> Reading the "How to Use" and "Registry" sections there, it looks to me
> very much as if this program also must be installed on every computer on
> which it is used. Or have I missed something?
>
> --
> Stephen Poley

The Decrypter (AxDecrypt.exe) is portable. Just copy it to your thumb
drive. I use it that way.

Jon

You may want to look at this site:-

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?q=encryption&m=Search

hope this helps.

Adrian

Adrian Earnshaw

Jon wrote:
> Stephen Poley wrote:
> > On 2 Sep 2006 11:30:36 -0700, "Jon" <> wrote:
> >
> > >Stephen Poley wrote:
> > >> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
> > >> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
> > >>
> > >> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
> > >> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
> > >> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
> > >> stick;
> > >>
> > >> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
> > >> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
> > >> otherwise in question;
> > >>
> > >> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
> > >> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
> > >>
> > >> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?
> >
> > >
> > >Check AxCrypt
> > >
> > >http://axcrypt.axantum.com/
> >
> > Reading the "How to Use" and "Registry" sections there, it looks to me
> > very much as if this program also must be installed on every computer on
> > which it is used. Or have I missed something?
> >
> > --
> > Stephen Poley
>
> The Decrypter (AxDecrypt.exe) is portable. Just copy it to your thumb
> drive. I use it that way.

Excuse me, "portable" is incorrect. It will work on any Windows system
as described above.

Jon

Stephen Poley wrote:
> With there having been some fairly high-publicity incidents involving
> people losing unencrypted USB sticks with sensitive information, I had
> expected that Internet would now be full of explanations of how to do a
> good job of encrypting files on them. But not that I can find.
>
> I have been hunting for a good solution for a while. But everything I've
> looked at so far suffers from at least one of the following problems:
>
> 1) the encryption program has to be already installed on every computer
> where one will use the USB stick (or at least one has to have admin
> privileges on every computer); one can't run it directly from the USB
> stick;
>
> 2) the program does not state which encryption algorithm is used (which
> typically means it's a useless home-brew job) or its security is
> otherwise in question;
>
> 3) when encrypting a directory tree, all the files are thrown into a
> single directory, making the extraction of a single file a pain.
>
> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?
>

truecrypt.org

You can put it on a usb drive and it has a linux version. AFAIK there is no
program that will work on "vanilla" windows because by default windows does not
have a built in encryption program that deals with files/directories, so what
ever solution you use needs to have the executable (and any dll's or support
files) on the usb drive.

~David~

On Tue, 05 Sep 2006 00:00:59 GMT, ~David~ <> wrote:

>Stephen Poley wrote:

>> Can anyone recommend a product which doesn't suffer from these problems?
>>

>truecrypt.org
>
>You can put it on a usb drive and it has a linux version. AFAIK there is no
>program that will work on "vanilla" windows because by default windows does not
>have a built in encryption program that deals with files/directories, so what
>ever solution you use needs to have the executable (and any dll's or support
>files) on the usb drive.

Er, yes - that's the point. I want the executables etc on the USB drive
and to be able to run them from there.

Truecrypt is one of the programs I have already looked at and rejected,
because either it must already be installed, or you need admin rights.

--
Stephen Poley

Stephen Poley

On Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:16:04 -0400, Stephen Poley
<> wrote:

>
> Er, yes - that's the point. I want the executables etc on the USB drive
> and to be able to run them from there.
>
> Truecrypt is one of the programs I have already looked at and rejected,
> because either it must already be installed, or you need admin rights.
>

You might be interested in the following links. First deals conceptually
with TC on a self-contained USB (uses QEMU, a VM and DSL Linux OS). Second
is
a link to a free download for USB that contains everything (I think)
except for TC - which you would install yourself (and then move everything
"sensitive" (e.g. mail client, browser, etc.) into the TC directory).

- I tried an early version of PVPM and it left almost NO trace on my W2K
machine - only a single registry entry that provided no information.

- It'll work without admin privileges (on 2K)

- If you run with this, how about posting your findings here!?

HTTP://forums.truecrypt.org/viewtopic.php?t=3194

HTTP://www.metropipe.net/pvpm.php

I believe that DSL actually maintains a QEMU/DSL USB download somewhere;
you might start with metropipe and update the components from the DSL
version
(or vice versa)

Roger Parks