I’ve always felt that some of the best software is free — take Mozilla Firefox for example.  SafeHouse Explorer is another great free product and in my use, I’ve found it to be a comprehensive data encryption solution for most Windows users.

One thing that I’ve noticed and enjoy about SafeHouse Explorer is its very clean look and simplicity of use. The application is designed to have the same appearance as the Windows Explorer and some of the most frequent tasks such as the “open volume” button are well placed and labeled, making the overall interface very functional, yet simple.

SafeHouse Explorer works to protect and encrypt your files by first letting your choose the size of its database or volume file. Then you create a password. I recommend that you choose a strong password (use the password strength indicator to help you), considering this will be your “master password” to all your files that are stored in that one volume. Once this is complete, you can simply drag and drop files into the window, and the program will then index and encrypt the files upon exiting the program.

One feature worth noting is the secure move-ability. This feature enables you easily move files to the SafeHouse application, and once imported, it destroys the files in the original location where they were dragged from.

Recovering your files is simple as well, and there are a variety of ways to regain access to your encrypted files. Users can create desktop shortcuts, double click on the volume file or simply launch the application and use the “open volume” button and navigate to the database or volume file. From there, users must enter their password- in which they assigned previously when they created the volume. SafeHouse Explorer then displays all of their files and the user can make changes. It then automatically creates a network drive when it recognizes you are logged into a particular volume. Once you close SafeHouse Explorer it deletes the network drive from Windows. This option makes it incredibly easy for users to easily gain access to their files using the familiar genuine Windows Explorer without having to use SafeHouse Explorer to access files. When volume is open in the application, users can make modifications directly to the file in SafeHouse Explorer. Many other clients require you to re-import files to make changes.

The company also offers a pro version of SafeHouse that offers additional functionality, but the free version is more than enough for most Windows users just looking to safeguard and encrypt files. There’s no Mac version, however.

You can download SafeHouse Explorer for free at: http://www.safehouseencryption.com/

With many of us trying to be more secure online by choosing better, less redundant and overall more secure passwords, the real question is “How do we remember them all?” Atek, a California based company, thinks they have a solution with their Logio Password Organizer Device.

It’s tiny –  only 1/8″ thick. The device reminds me of a cheap oven timer, and with that take on things, it’s very disappointing with flimsy thin plastic that almost breaks in half if you type with firm pressure.

The keyboard is somewhat acceptable yet very cheap-feeling again. I’ve found most of the other buttons take a few presses to get the unit to respond.

I found performance to be below average but manageable when you apply heavy pressure to the keyboard, which is really just a pain. I also found the interface to be very slow, and it often took a few seconds to respond to basic commands.

The simple menus are, well, simple. However, it is extremely tedious to keep pressing the down arrow to get to your listing at the end of the list when you store many items. The unit can store up to 200 records, but I couldn’t imagine pressing the down arrow 200 times to get to the last listing.

Two hundred is also a small number, considering several gigabytes of data fit into tiny secure digital cards these days.

The Logio stores all your passwords behind one AES-encrypted master password. Try not to forget that one.

I’ve always believed that as consumers, our pockets are filled with devices. We have our mobile phones, iPods, flash drives and more strapped onto our belt and stuffed into our pockets. Smartphones are beginning to get more and more advanced and with Apple, RIM, Palm and Windows Mobile taking new approaches we might finally be able to free our pockets.

With this in mind, the Atek Logio Password Organizer seems like a safe way to organize passwords and is defiantly more secure than your traditional pen and paper, but it contributes to the device clutter problem. I believe that the prototype would be far more successful if the company could develop mobile applications with this same functionality in mind for Smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Backberry devices and Windows Mobile Smartphones.

The product retails for $29.95 and is available at http://www.atek.com/

I thought I broke it. But I didn’t. Phew.

The Buffalo MiniStation DataVault is a tiny little 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive that is completely powered by mini USB and features full disk encryption/password access for a nice touch of portable security.

It really is small. It’s not much larger than a first generation iPod.

Getting back to the first paragraph, Buffalo advertises that the HDD is suspended on shock absorbers in the case, protecting it from … stuff. Clearly, the best way to test this was to transfer a bunch of big files onto it and then start shaking it like a bottle of water with one of those Crystal Light On the Go packets poured in.

Then I dropped it on the ground. Not hard. Just so.

Then Explorer froze and crashed.

I pulled the plug, restarted Explorer and plugged the drive back in. Vista warned me that the drive was improperly turned off last time and offered to do a scan to check things out. It turned up clean and about half the files had transferred onto the disc. I transferred a bunch more to and from the drive and it seemed to work fine. I’ll let the reader be the judge there.

The best thing about the drive is that it’s truly plug-n-play. I plugged it into a USB port and it was asking me for the password in seconds. I also like that it draws all its power from USB and doesn’t require another one of my vital AC sockets.

As far as performance goes, HD Tune averaged about 28 MB/sec read and about 27 write, which is above average for a USB drive.

We test drives with HD Tune Pro 3.10.

The drive comes pre-loaded with Memeo backup software and Firefox and Thunderbird portable with a taskbar app to launch all the portable programs you want to load onto it. (Big fan)

It seems like a good drive and a great bargain at under $100.

Just in case, Buffalo does give a 3-year manufacturer warranty.

It’s that easy to bypass the most popular forms of hard disk encryption software. From Windows Vista, to Mac OSX, to various flavors of Linux, it appears that all major operating systems are highly vulnerable.

Conventional wisdom held that DRAM memory was rapidly volatile, causing all of its information to fade as soon as power to a computer is cut. However, researchers with Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science department have recently proved that false.

By tipping the can of air upside down over a laptop’s DRAM chips, the nitrogen gas freezes the chip within seconds. When it’s frozen, the memory can stay fresh for longer than ten minutes — more than enough time to steal the encryption keys that allow easy access to the hard drive’s data.

In their paper, titled, “Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys,” they say, “We show that this phenomenon limits the ability of an operating system to protect cryptographic key material from an attacker with physical access. We use cold reboots to mount successful attacks on popular disk encryption systems using no special devices or materials.”

The revelation and airtight research have knocked the computer world for a spin, as laptops containing military information to proprietary corporate research are now wide open.
In their paper, the researchers observe that many computers with inefficient cooling systems do not need the benefit of liquid nitrogen at all. The DRAM stays cool enough on its own to simply reboot the computer with the proper access tools.

The researchers end their abstract by noting, “Though we discuss several strategies for partially mitigating these risks, we know of no simple remedy that would eliminate them.”

See also: The New York Times