TrueCrypt

[gboyce-qL0WqcyiFk9Wk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org (Gregory Boyce)]

On Wed, 11 Feb 2009, James Kramer wrote:

> I am backing up my datafiles to Amazon's on-line storage.  I was
> considering using TrueCrypt volumes to store sensitive data.  I am new
> to encryption. Does anyone have any experience with TrueCrypt.  It
> seems like a good solution to me since I can encrypt and store may
> data using common file management commands.   Is TrueCrypt a good
> choice for longterm storage and retrieval or Is it better to go with
> generic GNUPG routines.

For whole disk or partition encryption TrueCrypt is very good assuming you 
don't need key recovery facilities that corporations tend to care about. 
I also like the encrypted partition support provided on the Macs 
(FileVault).

Now depending on what data you're actually looking at storing, file level 
encryption (using GnuPG) may make more sense.  You'll want to look at how 
much data you're talking about, broken into how many files and if they 
change independantly or as a group.

If there's a lot of small files that change often, bundling them into an 
encryption partition makes sense.  For larger individual files that change 
independantly, GPG is the way to go.

Whichever method you end up using, make sure you have your key securely 
backed up as well.  There's nothing worse than having securely backed up 
and encrypted data that you can't open.

--
Greg