Password protect my thumbdrive? May 17, 2005 3:26 PM Subscribe
Does anyone know a simple (and free) method of password-protecting my USB thumbdrive? posted by celibate_life to computers & internet (14 comments total)
PGP? That's what I'd use. Just encrypt the files. posted by autojack at 3:30 PM on May 17, 2005
AxCrypt is good for encrypting on a computer and decrypting off the drive itself. posted by riffola at 3:32 PM on May 17, 2005
Truecrypt is good, but Windows only. I have a small (2MB) unencrypted partition for the program on my USB drive, and have all my data on an encrypted partition that takes up the rest of the drive space. posted by nixxon at 3:49 PM on May 17, 2005
Seconding TrueCrypt or some PGP implementation. posted by Jairus at 3:59 PM on May 17, 2005
Is there anything simpler than this (I'm kinda scared of partitioning, formatting, etc.)? I don't need this to be very secure at all. I just don't want the average joe to pick up my USB drive and be able to look through all my information. Ideally it would go something like this:
1 Insert flash drive
2 password prompt
3 enter correct password
4 see all files.
Maybe a tiny program I could keep on the drive itself? posted by celibate_life at 4:32 PM on May 17, 2005
What OS are you using? If you use Mac OS X you can use the OS utility Disk Copy to create an encrypted disk image on the USB flash drive. To use it just, 1) insert flash drive, 2) double-click disk image, 3) enter password, 4) a new volume will show up on the desktop containing all the current files as well as allow you to add and delete files. posted by RichardP at 4:44 PM on May 17, 2005
Do you already own a thumbdrive? Some have security stuff bundled with them. I believe my Swissbit drive that's part of my little Swiss Army Knife came with such a tool. Older drives did it in hardware, but that means you have to install drivers. Newer drives tend to have a little utility on the drive when you get them. posted by krisjohn at 8:28 PM on May 17, 2005
A very simple solution is to use winzip's built-in encryption. Most windows machines have a copy of winzip on them and if they dont its a free download. In fact you can put the installer on your drive.
Create a folder called stuff, make it encrypted and put all your stuff in there. Joe off the street shouldnt be able to read it. Make sure to use the newest version of winzip with the new (AES) encryption.
When you double click the folder you'll be asked for a password. No fuss, no muss. When done, put the file back in there. posted by skallas at 12:59 AM on May 18, 2005
Awesome, I was just searching for a good solution for this.
A question (or two) about WinZip's encryption. Seems the method only encrypts individual files. Is there any way to encrypt the Zip file itself?
If not, do I need to encrypt each file I add to the Zip file as I add them? Or can I set it to encrypt all files added, regardless of when I add them? posted by tr33hggr at 7:09 AM on May 18, 2005
Okay, cool...this definitely seems like the simplest method so far. However, it looks like this encrypts each file individually, so that I need to enter the password to open single files. Is there a way to encrypt a folder without encrypting its actual contents? posted by celibate_life at 8:54 AM on May 18, 2005
Oh...I completely misread tr33hggr's question. Looks like he already asked this. posted by celibate_life at 8:56 AM on May 18, 2005
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posted by autojack at 3:30 PM on May 17, 2005