Originally Posted By: Rio
Originally Posted By: thechaplain
...so one could back up anything they wanted and store on the web and access anywhere they wanted. may be a bad idea but like i said i havent thought it all the way out...


Yeah, I've been kicking around a pretty similar idea. However, I still have a bad feeling about posting enough info for someone to steal my entire identity. Maybe if it were in a passworded .rar or .zip (can you password a zip file?) hidden away on a secure site with the file name "backpacking 8-21-06.rar" or something that looks like it would be rather boring and is of little value to anyone but me. But for some reason, even that would scare me a little.


Most software incarnations of the zip/rar format have the option to encrypt the files. You need to be aware though that most have very weak encryption set as default. Winzip has the ability to use AES encryption which is good enough for all but the super paranoid. One drawback of zip files is that although the files are encrypted, you still have the ability to "see" your files in the zip archive. It is only when you go to extract the files, that you are prompted for a password.

If you are looking for the best all around encryption methods, PGP is unbeatable. The newer versions of PGP allow you to create self extracting files with which the contents cannot be seen until they are extracted.

Another great (and free, as is PGP) product is Truecrypt. With Truecrypt you can create virtual encrypted disks and or entire partitions or USB drives.

Both these products source code have been studied by some of the best cryptologists in the world. As a computer security professional (part of my day job), I do not hesitate to trust any of my data to either of these two products as I do on a daily basis.