[OT] 1344 bit encryption

[Alex Rice]

On Oct 31, 2003, at 6:03 PM, David Kwinter wrote:

> Dear revolutionaries,
>
> http://www.securstar.com/     makes a really mean 1344-bit "military 
> strength" encryption program. It's PC only - and I can well enough 
> imagine how slow it runs in Virtual PC.. Does anyone know of a cross 
> platform 1344-bit or similar program?
>
> Thanks for any pointers,

Upgrade to Mac OS 10.3 and you get encrypted filesystem options built 
into the OS.
<http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/filevault/>

re: securstar Don't let the "bits" of a product convince you of it's 
strength.  There is a company selling a "million-bit" crypto software 
and Bruce Schneier ripped them apart in his Crypto-Gram newsletter. See 
The Doghouse: Meganet 
<http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0302.html#4>.

Schneier, a top crypto expert, is renowned for advocating common sense, 
practicality, and human factors in security and risk management, 
instead of the "magic fairy dust" approach that some software companies 
would like to sell you.

I've never used Securstar myself. But some googling around reveals no 
negative reviews, and there is a previous open source project, 
Scramdisk, the authors of which parted ways and some went on to develop 
securstar/drivecrypt. See 
<http://samsimpson.com/cryptography/scramdisk/> for arguments pro and 
con about the move from free/open-source product to fully 
commercial/closed product. Securstar is probably a fine product, 
technically.

Thanks for posting this David- I remembered I want to order Schneier 
latest book _Beyond Fear_.

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | 
<http://mindlube.com>

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco