HC Encrypt is a stack that offers the ability to encrypt the data fork of any file you choose and then optionally scramble the encrypted data using an additional password. The encryption isn’t as good as DES (well, who knows) or anything like that, but it is much easier to use, and it’s pretty secure (see "How secure is HC Encrypt?" below). It also offers the ability to compress encrypted files.
Shareware...
HC Encrypt is shareware. That means that if you use it, you must pay for it. All I ask is $15, £10 or 100 NOK. You can send the money to
Daniel Stødle
Fogd Dreyersgt. 21
N-9008 Tromsø
NORWAY
If you have found any bugs or have any suggestions or comments, please include them with your payment or e-mail them to me at Hakon.Stodle@kunst.hitos.no (if you pay or not). The routines used by HC Encrypt is included with this release, but you need a license to use any of them. See the "HCE File Format" document for more info and licensing fees, as well as a plea for help.
How secure is HC Encrypt?
If you used a key 5 letters long and no scrambling, there would be 1078203909375 (255^5) possible combinations (don’t ask me to pronounce that number!). If you only used the letters ranging from A to Z (both upper and lowercase letters) as well as the numbers from 0 to 9, there would "only" be 1160290625 (62^5) possible combinations. And that is only a 5 letter key. A 10 letter key however, would with all possible ASCII code letters produce 1162523670191533213000000 (255^10) possible combinations. With the restrictions mentioned above, it would be a mere 839299365868340224 (62^10) possible combinations. And then there is scrambling...
Speed issues
HC Encrypt works with different speeds on different Macs. On a Mac LC, the test file (HC Encrypt Test File) is encrypted, scrambled and compressed in 2 minutes and 35 seconds with percentage calculation off.
Percentage calculation has a big impact on the speed of HC Encrypt. It accounts for about 25% of the time HC Encrypt needs to encrypt a file. To turn it on or off, click the checkbox below.
Due to HC Encrypt’s slow encryption rates, you should consider the material you need to encrypt. I would recommend that you use HC Encrypt on files that are smaller than 1K (little, maybe, but that should be enough for the most sensitive files) if you are running on a slooooow Mac (like mine). But that, of course, is entirely up to you.
Version history...
1.1 - Added the scrambling feature and the ability to turn percentage calculation off. I also added the ability to compress encrypted files using a routine I invented, specially designed to compress HCE files.
