Bcrypt 1.1 review

Bcrypt project is a lightweight blowfish file encryption utility which aims for cross-platform portability of not only the actual cod

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: Johnny Shelley

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Bcrypt project is a lightweight blowfish file encryption utility which aims for cross-platform portability of not only the actual code, but the encrypted files as well.

In addition to providing 448-bit encryption, Bcrypt overwrites input files with random garbage.

Installation:

If you're so inclined, edit config.h and change the defaults to whatever you think is appropriate for your needs. If you choose not to have bcrypt remove input files after processing, or set SECUREDELETE to 0, you are likely to have data on your hard drive that can be recovered even after deletion. All of these options can be set on the command line as well.

When you're satisfied with the default settings, simply type:

make

then su and type:

make install

It would be wise to test the installation on a few unimportant files before encrypting anything you value, removing the only copy and overwriting it 127 times with garbage.

Usage:

bcrypt [-orc][-sN] file ...

Encrypted files will be saved with an extension of .bfe. Any files ending in .bfe will be assumed to be encrypted with bcrypt and will attempt to decrypt them. Any other input files will be encrypted. If more than one type of file is given, bcrypt will process all files which are the same as the first filetype given.

By default, bcrypt will compress input files before encryption, remove input files after they are processed (assuming they are processed successfully) and overwrite input files with random data to prevent data recovery.

Passphrases may be between 8 and 56 characters. Regardless of the passphrase size, the key is hashed internally to 448 bits - the largest keysize supported by the blowfish algorithm. However, it is still wise to use a strong passphrase.

Options:

-o print output to standard out. Implies -r.
-c DO NOT compress files before encryption.
-r DO NOT remove input files after processing
-sN How many times to overwrite input files with random data before processing. The default number of overwrites is 3. Use -s0 to disable this feature. No effect if -r is supplied.

What's New in This Release:
1.1 fixes a few minor bugs and adds support for many new operating systems.
1.1 is immensely faster than 1.0.
Additionally, it uses about 50% as much memory with compression turned off, or 66% with compression on.

Notes: If you previously used 1.0 on an unsupported platform, you may not be able to decrypt any encrypted files you have. Alpha systems are known to have this problem. 32 bit systems should not have this problem. 64 bit systems probably do. If your system exhibits this problem, you should decrypt your files with 1.0 and reencrypt them with 1.1.