What is Encryption | types of encryption tools |

 

Encryption tools 

 👉 Introduction :-

                                  undoubtedly the INTETNET has been one of the greatest achievement of new Age technologies. It has  completely changed the way we live and work. however, with the immense growth of the internet, there lies a lurking danger. the general belief that the internet is absolutely safe, for sending sensitive information, has been shattered with the rude intrusion of unethical hackers. the hard reality is that someone else may open your letters or overhear the electronic communication. 

What is encryption?

Encryption is a way of scrambling data so that only authorized parties can understand the information. In technical terms, it is the process of converting human-readable plaintext to incomprehensible text, also known as ciphertext. In simpler terms, encryption takes readable data and alters it so that it appears random. Encryption requires the use of a cryptographic key: a set of mathematical values that both the sender and the recipient of an encrypted message agree on.

👉 Types of Encryption Tools :-

                                                    -there are eight types of encryption tools 

[1]. TrueCrypt

[2]. MD5

[3]. Yodas Crypter

[4]. Caesar

[5]. Karen's Hasher

[6]. Max File Encryption

[7]. BT AES File Encrypt

[8]. Omziff

  [1]. TrueCrypt :-

                                TrueCrypt is one of the most popular and interesting encryption tools today. It is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on- the- fly -encrypted" volume (data storage device ). On-the- fly encryption means that date is automatically encrypted or decrypted right before it is loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encryption volumes can read (decrypted) without using the correct password or correct encryption key. Until decrypted, a TrueCrypt volume appears to be nothing more than a series of random numbers. The entire file system is encrypted( i,e.m file names, folder names, contents of every file and free space). TrueCrypt never writes decrypted data to any storage device (it only temporarily writes data being decrypted to RAM.

                            

                                 Before I go further would like to discuss few terms/ phrase which will be used in this section.

➤What is a volume?

                                     

 It is a logical entity that consists of a fixed amount of physical space on one or more hard disks. physically, volume are divided into volume segments. Different segments of a volume can be stored on one or more hard disks. On the other hand, logically, volumes are divided into directories containing files or subdirectories by network supervisors and users who have the appropriate rights.

 ➤What is Mounting the Volume?

                                                            In computers, to "mount" is to make a group of files in a file system structure accessible to a user or user group. In some usages, it means to make a device physically accessible. For instance, in data storage, to mount is to place a data medium (such as a tape cartridge) on a drive in a position to operate. Before you can back up or recover data from a volume, you must mount the volume on a storage device. If you use a file-type storage device, you must still mount a labelled volume on the file-type device before backups can be written to the file-type device.

 

 ➤What is Dismounting the Volume?

                                                            It means to close it and make it impossible to read/write from/to the volume.

➤ What is Hidden Volume?

                                                    It may happen that you are forced by somebody to reveal the password to an encrypted volume. There are many situation where you cannot refuse to reveal the password (for example, when the adversary use violence). Using a so- called hidden volume allowed you to come out of such tricky situation in a diplomatic manner without revealing  the password to your volume.

                                   Now I will present step-by- step instruction on how to create, mount and use a TrueCrypt volume.        

💬 Link of Encrypted Tools to Download

Step 1: 

            First, Download, unpack, and install TrueCrypt (to do so, double-click TrueCrypt, Setup.exe file than save and click the Install)

Step 2:

                         Launch TrueCrypt by double- clicking the file TrueCrypt.exe or by clicking the TrueCrypt shortcut in your Windows start menu.

Step 3:

                The main TrueCrypt window should appear as given below. Click Create Volume.

Step 4:

            The TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard window will appear as given below. Read the instruction displayed in the wizard windows and click Next.

Step 5.

         In this step you have to specify where you  wish the TrueCrypt container to be create and what filename it should have. Note that TrueCrypt container is just link any normal file. Click, Select file. 
                                                                                                            ( In this example, we will create our TrueCrypt volume in folder  E:\and filename of the volume will be test.)

than click open(in the file selector window). 

                                                                            In the following steps, we will return to the TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard.

Step 6.

             Here you can choose an encryption algorithm and a hash algorithms for the volume.

                If you are not sure what to select here, you can use the default setting and click Next. This step will become clear after viewing the following screenshots:

step 7.

                Here we specify that we wish the size of our TrueCrypt container to be 1 megabytes. you may, of course, specify a different size. After you  type the desired size in the input field, click NEXT.

                                                                TrueCrypt volume can be to 85899345592 GB. However, you need to consider several factors. If the volume is file-hosted, you must take into account the limitations of the file system that the container will be stored on. Remember that file-hosted volumes stored on FAT32 file system cannot be larger than 4GB ( if you need a larger volume, store it on NTFS file system or, instead of creating a file-hosted volume, encrypt a partition).

                                                                                for all types of TrueCrypt volumes, you must be aware of the limitations of the file system you are going to encrypt (i.e., the file system within the encrypted volume). note that no FAT32 volume, encrypted or otherwise, can be larger than 2048 GB (if you need larger volumes, format them as NTFS). finally, you must also take into account the hardware connection standard, and your operating system limitations.

step 8.

            This is one of the most important steps. Here you have to choose a good volume password. carefully read the information displayed in the wizard window about what is considered a good password. After you choose a good password, type it in the first input field. Then re-type it in the input field below the first one and click Next.

                TrueCrypt does not contain any mechanism or facility that would allow partial or complete recovery of your encrypted data without knowing the correct password or the key used to encrypt the data. The only way to recover your files is to try to "crack"  the password or the key, but it could take thousands or millions of years depending on the length and quality of the password, or the key size, on the software/hardware efficiency, besides many other factors.

Step 9.

                Move your mouse as randomly as possible within the volume creation wizard window for at least 30 seconds. The longer you move the mouse, the better. This is important for the quality of the encryption key.

                    Click Format.

We have just successfully created a TrueCrypt Volume (file container).

                        In the TrueCrypt Volume creation Wizard window, click Exit.

                                    The Wizard window should disappear.

In the remaining steps, we will mount the volume we just created. TrueCrypt volumes are independent of the operating system. You will be able to mount your TrueCrypt volume on any computer on which you can run TrueCrypt.

                                We will return to the main TrueCrypt window. ( It should still be open, but if it not repeat step2 to launch TrueCrypt).