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Idea #6337: easy way to create private secure encrypted folders through nautilus



bug This idea was marked as being in development the 2 June 08. Target release: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.
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Written by ubuntu_demon the 3 Apr 08 at 18:17. Category: Security.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: In development
Description
Right-mouse-click in nautilus should have an option to create a private secure encrypted folder (for example in your home dir or on your usb stick). All files and folders in this special folder should be automatically encrypted and still be usable like normal files (after providing a strong pass-phrase to unlock the folder).

In this way people/organizations/companies/governments who want to secure their usb sticks don't have to buy expensive usb sticks but can use average cheap usb sticks.
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Developer comments
A feature similar to this is being planned for 8.10. Please leave comments on the blueprint and/or file bugs for specific implementation details.


Attachments
spec Blueprint encrypted-private-directories: Ubuntu


Duplicates


Comments
ubuntu_demon wrote on the 3 Apr 08 at 18:30
IMHO this idea has more merit if will be integrated in Ubuntu by default so a user can access the contents of his secure folder on his usb stick/external drive on any Ubuntu system he trusts.


Theodore wrote on the 4 Apr 08 at 00:20
No good idea. There is still lost + found and /swap which could still contain private data while the user is thinking his data is secure.

Also moving a file into an encrypted container does not help much. You can still undelete the file with a tools as long it does not get overridden.

If people want effectively use encryption such a feature is just contra productive. You need to know that there are tricky things like lost + found and swap and you need to be aware to shred free space and such.

Therefore rather invest in full disk encryption. The current implementation lacks many important features.

melhor wrote on the 4 Apr 08 at 11:10
i think this is already realized in hardy. just create pgp-key and in nautilus click right on a folder or a file -> there should be some menu entry for encryption

cheers

wolfwitch wrote on the 4 Apr 08 at 15:05
@melhor is correct- this has been implemented in Hardy.

BTW- TrueCrypt has a great GUI for Linux now as-well. Maybe Ubuntu can integrate it someday.

nami wrote on the 5 Apr 08 at 14:26
I've never been able to get the GUI for TrueCrypt to work. Probably because it is not integrated with gnome as you say.

zishmusic wrote on the 17 Apr 08 at 20:26
What about encfs? AFAIK, there is no good GUI, or easy integration scheme. I use it for a couple directories under my home directory, but I had to write a couple scripts to get them set up.
There is a PAM module that allows you to use tie encfs to your login credentials, but I haven't yet gotten it to work.
Any opinions?

Manos wrote on the 2 May 08 at 18:18
This is already implemented in Hardy Heron.

ubuntu_demon wrote on the 27 May 08 at 14:45
This is not in Hardy in the way that I envisaged it.

Right-mouse-click in nautilus should have an option to create a private secure encrypted folder (for example in your home dir or on your usb stick). All files and folders in this special folder should be automatically encrypted and still be usable like normal files (after providing a strong pass-phrase to unlock the folder).

What Hardy does :
Provide an encrypt and an sign option in the right-click menu of nautilus which creates a new encrypted file or archive. Each time you want to work with the file the unencrypted contents are written to the disk (instead of just in memory).

clausfse wrote on the 7 Jun 08 at 05:43
There is the program cryptainer for Windows systems. Its
functionality is exactly what is needed here.

fordplay wrote on the 5 Aug 08 at 08:37
This is a great idea. However the login password needs to be robust. We don't want to introduce a secure encrypted folder for all users and still allow qwerty or 1234 as the password.

see one of my ideas that deals with this problem
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5682/

Vadim P. wrote on the 6 Aug 08 at 21:22
Available for testing: http://dustinkirkland.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/encrypted-private-directories-in -ubuntu-intrepid/#comments

scientus wrote on the 23 Aug 08 at 17:50
-1 if someone is going to encrypt a usb disk they want it to be multi-platform. encryptfs is only for linux. use a better supported standard like GnuGP or Truecrypt or make encryptfs better. Good seamless encryption like what windows XP promises (but doesn't deliver on the security side) would be excellent.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12395/


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