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Encryption program for Mac
subedii
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Registered User regular
Making use of a Mac that a few people use. I've been storing things like financial records and other misclaneous bits and bobs, but now that other people sometimes use it, I wanted a way to encrypt them without too much hassle. I can't say I know too much about Open Source or freeware applications for Mac, or encryption programs either, so I'd find any suggestions helpful.
I'm not expecting something crazy that would take upwards of 2 millenia to crack or something, just something simple enough that will deter people from seeing how much I'm earning / spending etc.
Barring that I'd have to keep them all on a flash drive, but I'd prefer to keep them on my Mac if possible.
So, any recommended programmes? Ease of use would be pretty helpful as well.
I'm not expecting something crazy that would take upwards of 2 millenia to crack or something, just something simple enough that will deter people from seeing how much I'm earning / spending etc.
Barring that I'd have to keep them all on a flash drive, but I'd prefer to keep them on my Mac if possible.
So, any recommended programmes? Ease of use would be pretty helpful as well.
subedii on
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It's exactly what you are looking for.
Just use finder on filevault - you'll find it. It's under security in system preferences.
I've been stupid, I'll just use separate user accounts and passwords. There's no way for them to access my documents then right? As long as they don't know my PW I should be OK, and they don't have admin access, so is there anything else I need to take care of, or is that enough to keep my personal files?
Operating-system enforced access control only works if your hypothetical party does not have physical access to the computer. If they do, even for five minutes, they can boot to a CD/USB/Firewire device running the OS of their choice, and read all the files on the system. You can mitigate that risk by turning on the EFI lock, which forbids booting the system from anything other than the hard disk. It still won't stop someone who is motivated to open the system with a screwdriver.
My suggestion is to just turn on FileVault (System Preference, Security), or else use encrypted disk images (very easy to create using Disk Utility, as a previous person suggested). If Disk Utility is too much hassle though, you can make it easier with this $29 program called Knox: http://www.knoxformac.com/
Is your situation such that you're sharing a user account with someone else but yet plan to hide data from them? Definitely create separate accounts -- even if you do plan on using encryption. However if you are the only one intending to use your account, you don't need separate accounts for your separate security needs. Just use one account and choose an encryption method that works.
If you're just going to use separate accounts as your protection keep be careful. As the last message suggests, somebody can boot to another OS and read the files from there, or if somebody is using another account then the permissions may be set up to allow reading from any account. (I'm not sure, but the default may be to allow universal read access.)
You can use separate accounts safely if you turn on File Vault, though.