But what if you want to send the encrypted file to someone else? Well OSX Snow Leopard and Lion can create encrypted zip files, and decrypt and expand them. Thing is that zip encryption isn't very strong.
How about using openSSL with AES-256 encryption instead?
To encrypt from the command line
- openssl des3 -salt -in regular.txt -out encrypted.txt
And to decrypt
- openssl des3 -d -salt -in encrypted.txt -out regular.txt
So I have a file called "all_tags.txt" then you would do
- openssl des3 -salt -in all_tags.txt -out all_tags.encrypted.txt
enter des-ede3-cbc encryption password:
Verifying - enter des-ede3-cbc encryption password:
You'll see you are asked for the passphrase twice. Don't lose it!
This is what the file looks like:
- Salted__3fi˛Œ—Æ+È£Pùˇ§S`p~±Õ˘Ãº_ç*oõÏ ◊◊Ȱ8Aˆ3"∞ »„â@‡yÑ€g≠.¡ìÁ|2Ë4~)‚R)ÚR¶®™1Íê=o–ï€à∑!¡›fiπ∑Öˇ#[P˙Ô|éÈsÙ¢ì‚z^◊ú˛ÀBœ2íùJÂh©åQ&±û—†nÇIÊQˆµxá( ∆8Íg¬a˛Î.V˚tuKV[CHø€c√“®˙√5Öïæh˘zt„ŸÂïCe"d,è€Höπ$Âú8ê”<Ȭ˚ù'•?[4◊uÓé÷0—aeõnö˘CÖÁ€r˝—®À»?›<…åìŸ Ê#Æú¢v´Ø{'›ÆÙ∞)<◊[õì
Then to decrypt
- openssl des3 -d -salt -in all_tags.encrypted.txt -out all_tags.clear.txt
- enter des-ede3-cbc decryption password:
and you get the first file.
Works with ANY file!
You can zip the encrypted version if you like to save space.