CryptDrive alpha test
 

CryptDrive creates a virtual drive on an SD card, Memory Stick, or other FAT16/32 device. The virtual drive can be encrypted with AES 128. Create a drive and turn it on.

This is alpha test software. Make sure to back up your PDA and your drive. I don't recommend trying with internal drives.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

http://www.1src.com/freeware/index.php?cid=23

Source code in CVS at www.sf.net/projects/handypalmstuff

Woohoo! This should be fun!
Is it compatible with any desktop apps by any chance?

No. But sometimes (not always) Drive Mode works with it.

Thats good enough for most things.
How big can the drives be?

4gb minus 1 byte, I think. I.e., maximum FAT file size.

I'm having some puzzles related to trying to move applications to the encrypted drive and running them from there.

First, if I examine the card in the native Palm Applications, it creates a /Palm/Launcher/ directory on the encrypted drive, just as does on a new card. It's into this directory where I've been putting applications to try to run.

With Patience Revisited, the icon appears in gray-scale rather than color, when copied to the encrypted drive. If I create a drive that isn't encrypted by omitting a password, the icon shows in color. Back to the encrypted drive, the application launches and runs fine if a copy of it also resides in main memory. But if I remove it from main memory and then try to run it from the encrypted drive, I get an error dialog that says, "Cannot start the application! Probably deleted, or not enough RAM."

I've also tried moving Noah Pro's Thesaurus to the encrypted drive, along with its database. If a copy of the main application also resides in RAM, it runs fine from the encrypted drive (although it may be picking up the database from the main /Palm/Launcher/ directory on the main card). If I remove the application from main memory and try to launch it from the encrypted drive, it begins to start with its "...Loading" message, but then it dumps me back into the launcher. I guess it isn't finding its database in the encrypted drive or in the directory of the main card.

Edit: If I have the Thesaurus application in main memory and its database on the encrypted drive and nowhere else, the database cannot be found and I get an error message to that effect. If the database is in another directory besides /Palm/Launcher/ on the main card, it is found. I guess Thesaurus searches for the data and finds it in any directory it may be in on the main card. It doesn't extend the search to the ecrypted drive. This would be a problem if one wanted to encrypt data to be accessed, say, by a database application.

I'm not usually in the habit of launching applications from the card, so I haven't experimented with many other applications. And I don't know for sure why one would want the main application to live on the encrypted drive in real life. I can imagine wanting applications to be able to find their data on the encrypted drive, though. I'm not sure what to do to test for that ability.

And I don't know if the behavior I've reported here say something about bugs in the application or not.

Some apps will only look on the first card for files.
This is a problem with the way the apps are coded so it's not something CryptDrive can fix...

I've posted 0.21.

I notice that if you use DriveMode and make changes via the desktop, you need to pop the card out and push it back in after you exit DriveMode. I don't know why.

Interesting to know that. So in that case, one might want to encrypt the first drive. Or encrypt the whole card.

Do you think it would be feasible to put the ordinary PIM data files on the encrypted drive?

@FerdFerd
Why don't you use the built in encryption?

Good question, I suppose. For the most part, I've not cared much about encryption. I do store passwords and other private information in an encrypted application, but otherwise, I haven't thought what I have is of much value. My question really has more to do with trying to decide what I'd do with CryptDrive. It's an interesting idea, but I may not need it.

One reason to encrypt the PIM data on the card might be to make it portable, yet protected from prying.

Idea !
 

Amazing software!

Would you like to made this app. to run in the preferences mode? :D



Sorry for my poor English, but isn't my native language. :rolleyes:

Built-in encryption in NVFS devices has a security hole. Basically, often most or almost all of the data is unencrypted.

No, not really, I think.