Data Encryption

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=95 BGCOLOR="#3333FF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="061005f0egbsod.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Silent Surfers' Security Site</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Surfers Security Site"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Introduction"><U>Introduction</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Just the basics"><U>Just the basics</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id6.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Firewalls"><U>Firewalls</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Computer Viruses"><U>Computer Viruses</U></A>   |   <B>Data Encryption</B>   |   <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Actual Data Deletion"><U>Actual Data Deletion</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id43.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Surfing Anonymously"><U>Surfing Anonymously</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Test your internet vulnerabilities"><U>Test your internet vulnerabilities</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Software"><U>Software</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Sufer Mail"><U>Silent Sufer Mail</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Help Links"><U>Help Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Web Browser"><U>Silent Web Browser</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id66.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Search"><U>Search</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=385 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Data Encryption</div> <div>                                                                                                                                        <A NAME="an_essential_tool_to_further_safeguard"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> An essential tool to further safeguard your personal and financial data is to employ a good, secure data encryption program. The benefits to using such software is immeasurable. </div> <div> In the event of a total security breakdown, having your private data encrypted may prove to be the saving grace. Should you be victimized by a hacker, a virus or a hostile Java applets, whatever files are compromised will be rendered to useless gibberish.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>What is Data Encryption?</U></B></I></div> <div> The best definition I could find that the average person can understand comes from a Washington Post article written by Dan Froomkin and Amy Branson, it states that:</div> <bR> <div>  <I> "Modern encryption is achieved with algorithms that use a "key" to encrypt and decrypt messages by turning test or other data into digital gibberish and then restoring it to its original form.</I></div> <div> <I>The longer the "key," the more computing required to crack the code.</I></div> <div> <I>To decipher an encrypted message by brute force, one would need to try every possible key. Computer keys are made of "bits" of information, binary units of information that can have the value zero or one. So an eight-bit key has 256(2 to the eighth power) possible values. A 56-bit key creates 72 quadrillion possible combinations.</I></div> <div> <I>If the key is 128 bits long, or the equivalent of a 16-character message on a personal computer, a brute-force attack would be 4.7 sextillion(4,700,000,000,000,000,000,000) times more difficult than cracking a 56-bit key." </I>(You can read the entire article, <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/encryption/encryption.ht" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/pol"><U>here.</U></A>)</div> <bR> <div> The implementation of a good data encryption tool is most important due to the fact that it will further safeguard your confidential data from close encounters of the up close and personal kind.</div> <div> Firewalls, AV. utilities and safe surfing habits will give you a large degree of security against remote intrusions. They are useless against the hostile attack encountered when another person gains actual physical control of your PC. This attack can come in the form of house guests, family, friends of family or outright theft of your pc.</div> <div> If your confidential data is encrypted using a strong algorithm and a secure "key",  you have in effect locked all the doors and windows to your PC.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>What should I encrypt?</U></B></I></div> <div> You should encrypt everything that you would not like made public.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0a1110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Any personal data. (Name, Date of birth, SSN, place of birth, your mothers maiden name, your children's or family's personal data.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Your address book.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0a1110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Any and all financial data.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Any work related material. (To include bookmarks, projects, and all references to your work.)</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Your password list. (Almost everyone surfing the internet has sites they can  access only by giving a password, most people have more passwords than they can keep track of, keeping a file of passwords is both commonplace and a good idea, keeping such a list in plain site and unencrypted is not. My password list is kept in an encrypted file I named 'Short Stories.'</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Anything and everything you would be opposed to having a stranger open and inspect.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">All e-mail. (This may take a little organization to ensure that all recipients have the capabilities of encrypting and decrypting messages, but  the time spent in doing so is well worth it.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <I><B><U>How would you define a 'good' key?</U></B></I></div> <div> A key is essentially a password. The difference between being good (secure) and bad (crackeable) is in the length (the number of characters) and the complexity. (Your name, your nickname or anything personal about you that might be guessed can compromise the integrity of your encrypted data)</div> <div> A good key, the most secure, will comprise both upper and lower case letters and include punctuation characters as well.</div> <div> Examples of poorly keyed encryption are:</div> <div>   <IMG SRC="0a1110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">John Doe. <I>Your name</I></div> <div>   <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Crash. <I>Your childhood nickname</I></div> <div>   <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Smalltown USA.<I> Your place of birth, or your hometown</I></div> <div>   <IMG SRC="0a1110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">My passwords. <I>A description of the file you are encrypting</I></div> <div>   <IMG SRC="0be110f0.gif" border=0 width="17" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The Screaming Armidillos. <I>The name of your college or high school sports team</I></div> <div> Examples of securely encrypted keys are:</div> <div>   ThEyUsEdToCaLlMeAjOcKiNsChOoL (This uses alternating upper and lower case letters, and is 29 characters long. The benefits to this type of key, is that it is easily remembered by the original 'they used to call me a jock in school' with the added twist that there are no spaces between the words and that beginning with the first letter, every other character is capitalized)</div> <div>   self<ctrl>contributes2<PROSPEROUS>living. (This may be harder to remember, but is quite secure as it is 39 characters long, comprises upper and lowercase letters, seldom used punctuation and abbreviation.)</div> <div>   SC*&"'"'"'><plbr549 heLL00 Theya (Quite secure, but next to impossible to remember. It is more than 30 characters in length, uses upper and lower case letters, punctuation and spaces. Next to impossible to crack, it is equally difficult to remember. If you choose to use a key similar to this, it is recommended that you keep a copy of the key in a safe or some place where it will not be easily and readily accessed.)</div> <bR> <div>   <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FF0000" FACE="Arial" ><I><B><U>What if I forget my Key?</U></B></I></FONT></div> <div> If you are using a strong encryption program with a secure key, you are out of luck would recommend keeping a copy of your key in a safe, secure place away from your PC. (Perhaps you have a curtain rod that is hollow and can easily be separated to cache your key?) A safety deposit box is a definite plus security wise, but the drawbacks are in accessing it at midnight  the night before a business presentation is due.</div> <div> An alternative would be to hide you key in plain text in another easily accessible unencrypted folder. This could be anything. It might be the first paragraph of a file you have downloaded and saved. While such a file is readily accessible, there would be little to point to the fact that the first line of the third paragraph in a file named 'composting tips' is actually your encryption key. The possibilities, when considered thusly, are endless. Just make sure that if you use this "key" has a large number of characters.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>  Can my key be cracked?</U></B></I></div> <div> Yes. All keys can be cracked. If you use a strong algorithm with a secure key as described previously, it is likely that whatever you have encrypted will be broken long after the deaths of your great-great grand children. Long after their relevance has become a matter of history.</div> <div>   Note: A secure encryption key, while it will take years to crack, can be stolen. Don't keep a copy of your key where it will be recognized as such and be freely accessible. The data that you encrypt and store on your pc is only as good as the steps you take to safeguard the key. If you keep a copy of your key on a postit note attached to your monitor then it will be great when dealing with remote access, but will be worthless when a stranger sits down at your pc and sees it.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>                                                        <A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Computer Viruses"><U><IMG SRC="12820200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>    <A HREF="#an_essential_tool_to_further_safeguard" TITLE="Data Encryption"><U><IMG SRC="12920200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>    <A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Actual Data Deletion"><U><IMG SRC="12c20200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div>   </div> </td> </tr></table></body>