TrueCrypt

I recently discovered a particularly cool crypto tool, TrueCrypt. It creates virtual encrypted volumes for Windows. Years ago, back in the Win98 days, I used to use a tool called ScramDisk. As with things of this nature, though, it became unsuported and didn't work on Win2K or newer. A year or so ago, I found CrossCrypt. Good program, I liked it. But when I found TrueCrypt, I dropped CrossCrypt like a hot rock. With TrueCrypt, you create a container file that can be encrypted in a number of ways (AES, Serpent, Blowfish, Twofish, etc.). Plus, it has the extra cool feature of being able to create encrypted volumes inside encrypted volumes. So once created, the volume is mounted to the drive of your choice and you use it just like any other local drive. When you're done, you unmount it, and it is an encrypted file with your files contained safely therein. At this point, people usually ask me, "So you do stuff so important that you need to keep it encrypted?" or sometimes "Why? Do you have stuff that you don't want other people to see?" In both cases, my answer is the same: that ain't the point. The simple fact is that what I do, the files that I make (usually very uninteresting Perl files or sometimes a config file or two) aren't anyone's business other than my own, so I keep them locked up. When I leave my house, I lock my door. When I leave my car, I lock that door, too. As I see it, storing files (usually work-in-progress stuff) in an encrypted format is just a logical extension of that. Take a look at TrueCrypt. For my encryption needs, it works very well.