Why the need for encryption ?

Most people have sensitive information stored on their computer they would not wish to fall into the wrong hands. Even if it is only a personal letter, or a CV for an employment agency they want to hide from their boss. The principle remains the same, it is not for general viewing by all and sundry.

From the phreaker and hackers' perspective, they may have gleaned much information that may be illegal to possess through their activities.

Although there are many freeware/shareware and commercial programs that handle encryption, many don't use strong enough encryption algorithms. Even the ones that do rarely release their source code. This leaves the user of such programs wondering just how safely and securely their data has been stored.

This section takes a look at how the individual may approach his or her own way of assuring secure and private data storage. You wont find any new encryption algorithms here, but you will find out how to pick a good algorithm.

What you will find here is new ways to develop your own method of storing encrypted information on disk.

As such, we will need to take an in depth look at the workings of the hard disk as this is currently the primary media for home data storage.

We will be using DOS for this as I believe it is the perfect operating system for quickly developing secure storage techniques. I use Linux as my primary operating system and Windows when I have to, but I still prefer to keep a separate hard disk with DOS as my primary media for hiding encrypted sensitive information.

DOS can easily be networked to PC's running Windows or Linux, so transferring files isn't a problem.

Of course, there isn't a single encryption technique that can't be broken by the determined person(s) with enough time and computing power, and yes that does include the one-time pad !

The idea is to make it so difficult for the authorities, that they either give up when they realise they don't have sufficient computing power to break the encryption in a reasonable period of time, or they realise it will take too many resources just to even come near understanding the encryption and storage techniques used.

The ultimate choice as to the strategy and algorithm you use is up to you. Hopefully after you have read this section, you will understand what to look for in an algorithm and how to implement it.

You will definitely be in a position to store your encrypted data on a hard disk using a filing system that will ensure that no one can even find your encrypted files, let alone try to decrypt them :)

You wont find a discussion on public key cryptography (other than a brief explanation of what it is) as the primary objective is to secure data on your own disk using only a private key.