Software doesn't always have to be complicated and, contrary to popular belief, it doesn't always have to be what I categorise as "bloat-ware". Very rarely an application comes along that does exactly what it says on the box.
Most folks with an internet account also have an email account and many of these make use of public mail services such as Google, Yahoo or Hotmail.
While it's great to have access to public services like this, sometimes you want to send information that's a little more sensitive than the rest. Maybe you have started a new bank account and want to have easy access to the new details. Perhaps you want to send confidential information that you need to have centralised access to.
Security suddenly becomes very important and you need to have a way of keeping this safe from prying eyes or unexpected account access.
With this in mind I found myself engaged in a long-term search for an application capable of encrypting text or on the odd occasion a file. The application had to be cross-platform (able to work on a PC as well as a Macintosh), it had to have a small footprint (absolutely not bloat-ware) and it had to be portable (i.e., it would fit on a USB stick).
It took a long time of finding likely products and trying them out only find that they failed the test on some part of my criteria. The most frequent reason for failure was the way some of these programs insisted in spreading code components throughout the operating system (like Ivy crawling up the side of a house). I found it infuriating and quite pointless to see how such a straight forward application could be made to destabilise other programs and take up huge amounts of disk space for such a small return in functionality.
Then I came across R10Cipher, an application that proves 64bit encryption for both plain text and files.
I had missed it in most searches because of the awful name. It may have seemed smart to mimic the company name in the product title (R10Cipher is made by Artenscience) but I still get caught off guard when searching for it my applications or my downloads storage area.
That said the product itself was like a breath of fresh air. It's simple (so simple it doesn't need an installer), it's effective and it's cross-platform. It ticks all the boxes and is easy to use.
As mentioned, there's no installer. On a Windows computer you simply unzip the downloaded archive, create a new R10Cipher folder in Program Files and copy the contents over. Create a shortcut on the desktop and your good to go!
The trail period seems unlimited, though you do have to put up with a "Trial" banner on the desktop while the application is running. The other major selling point is the price, it only costs £18:00 per seat (it's a UK based company) and there are very reasonable rates on volume pricing.
Working R10Cipher couldn't be easier. When you start the application you see a screen with five main areas, though in practice you will probably only use three of them. Perhaps the best way to illustrate it's use is to give an example.
Let's say I have just been working on a staff performance review. I want to send this home to work on later but it's confidential and I don't want any chance of it getting into the wrong hands.
I start by completing the report.
Once completed, I use copy and paste to transfer the text into the "Clear text" window of R10Cipher.
Finally, I add my "Shared Secret". This can be any kind of password or passphrase and you will use it at the "other end" to decrypt your message. As with all passwords, the longer and more complex the better. One feature I liked here was the ability to check the "Show" box so you can make sure that what you thought you had typed matched what actually went in the box. Your encrypted message is no use if you go to decrypt just to find that you slipped on the keyboard and now have no idea what was used for a Shared Secret!
Click on the "Encrypt" button and you are presented with a satisfyingly jumbled collection of gibberish. Now all you do is copy the encrypted gibberish into the body of your email message and send it on it's way. R10Cipher helps again by including a button called "Clipboard", so bypassing the need for copy and paste.
Once you get to your personal account all you have to do is reverse this process by copying the gibberish into the "Cipher Text" window, enter the Shared Secret and click on "Decrypt" to convert the gibberish back to the original text. Simple!
Let's see how R10Cipher handles the old programming favourite "Hello World!".
Unencrypted text = "Hello World!"
Encrypted text = "OmOgL2jSVvaSmPVh"
You can monitor the process of encryption in the "R10Cipher Events Feedback" window, but to be honest the encryption process is so fast that all your likely to see here is "Starting" and "Finished".
The R10Cipher interface includes some helpful functions by way of the toolset at the top of the application. The "Email" button, for example, will start your default email program and place the encrypted text in the message body ready for your to send. You just have to add the Recipient and Subject information.
File encryption is just as straight forward. Just drag and drop the file to encrypt into the "File Encryption Area", provide the Shared Secret and click on the "Batch" button. Your file will be encrypted and the extension ".r10Enc" will be added thereby identifying the file. I'm not so happy with this latter feature because I don't like to identify the file and thereby tell any prospective hacker what application He/She should use to crack the file. I prefer my encrypted content to be completely anonymous. It does appear that, once encrypted, you can remove the file extension and just leave it as an unknown.
If you drag that same unknown file into the "File Encryption Area", provide the Shared Secret and hit "Decrypt File" it does appear that R10Cipher recognises the file as one of it's own, because it asks you to name the file and then dutifully decrypts the contents.
R10Cipher isn't without its little peculiarities. Perhaps the most annoying function is the "Speak" facility. Click on this and your computers speakers will burst into life and read (if possible) the contents of the Clear Text window. While this may prove useful to some, the one thing that caught me each time was the application announcing unexpectedly "Encryption Complete!". I'll admit that it nearly scared me witless the first time it happened. On the Macintosh I have seen instanced where you turn this 'feature' off only to have it carry on announcing regardless.
R10Cipher is clearly a live project for it's developer judging by the number of updates. I have been using this application since version 2.x and it is regularly updated.
The developer/author of R10Cipher, and the owner of Arten Science, is Steve Cholerton. Over the years I have found that Steve is very open to comment and, as with many small development houses, is very hands on. His Artenscience.co.uk website currently sports a certificate from the 2009 UK IT Industry Awards of which R10Cipher was a Technology Excellence finalist.
I have to say that I am not the least bit surprised given what a superb application this is. It should take pride of place in any Internet user's toolbox.
Brian McClue is an IT Professional with a special interest cross-platform functionality and a keen dislike of bloat-ware (software that takes up huge computer resource for very little tangible benefit). He is the owner http://www.themetopia.net, a personal website dedicated to reviews, photography and other interesting themes.
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