Thank you for buying In Confidence to protect your confidential data.
Encryption is the science of hiding information, decryption is the process of reversing the encryption to make the information intelligible again.
The actual processing of files and management of encryption is a highly complex task, In Confidence provides a simple-to-use method of applying this sophisticated technology. To see how you may protect information, this introductory sequence will take you through the use of some of the product's features.
Adopting a Unique User Identity
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Security can only be achieved if you have certain information unique to yourself - this information is held in your Unique User Identity File. Part of this information is given to other people, so that they can encrypt computer files they wish to send to you, and the other part allows you to read those files by decrypting them.
If the copy of the software you have is not licensed then you will have no Unique User Identity File, so you should press CANCEL to leave the adoption facility. Two demonstration User Identity Files are included with the package for evaluation purposes. However, since the User Identity Files are the same on all In Confidence packages, no security can be provided.
Should someone else lend you their licensed copy of In Confidence their security will be lost, since you will be able to read anything that they encrypt under their own User Identity.
In order to provide a copy of In Confidence to your friends and colleagues for evaluation you should copy your original floppy disk, leaving off your Unique User Identity File, which is in two parts:
In Confidence will initially take you through a procedure for the adoption of the Unique User Identity File provided with the original, licensed, floppy disk.
When you are first presented with the screen there is a 'Browse' button, by clicking on this you instruct the system to find your Unique User Identity File, it will only be found automatically if your original floppy disk is in disk drive A:. If you are using another disk drive you will need to tell In Confidence where to find it.
In Confidence then requires you to tell it who you are, you can specify a name up to eight characters in length. If you are working with other people with the same name, agree a set of unique names. These will be used to 'logon' to In Confidence.
Next In Confidence needs to secure your Unique User Identity File with a password known only to yourself. NOTE: To comply with international standards upper case and lower case characters are considered different (i.e. A is NOT the same as a). Your Password can be up to eight characters in length, although In Confidence will allow passwords of a shorter length, it is recommended that yours be at least six characters long. This password will need to be entered twice to make sure that no typographical mistakes have been made.
Having completed the password change, In Confidence needs to Know how you want to announce yourself to other people who wish to securely communicate with you. An example may be:
The adoption is now complete and you have customised your Unique User Identity.
You should now place the original licensed floppy disk in a safe, secure place, as it provides your only mechanism to recover files if you lose your installed In Confidence. It can also provide a method for someone to access your secured files.
DataSafe do not keep copies of the Unique User Identity Files - you have the only one! So keep it safe.
Using In Confidence
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Logon:
After In Confidence has loaded you are presented with a 'logon' screen, this is the mechanism In Confidence uses to ascertain who you are and which files you are allowed to decrypt.
Your User Name is the name that you entered into the adoption of your Unique User Identity File.
Your Password is the one that you chose in adopting your Unique User Identity File. Don't forget upper and lower case are different!
Two demonstration User Identities are provided:
User Name: demoone Password: demoone
User Name: demotwo Password: demotwo
These are for evaluation purposes and do not provide any security.
If you receive an error message at logon you have either mistyped the User Name or the Password.
If you forget your password you must re-install In Confidence and re-adopt your Unique User Identity File. You will not lose access to the files that have already been encrypted in your name.
Encryption:
By pressing the ENCRYPT button (the left hand button) you enter the screens which allow you to secure the file you select.
The recipient is the person you wish to have sole access to the file. If you select yourself and overwrite the original file (by making the output the same as the source), then no one else can read the information contained in the encrypted copy of the file.
If you encrypt a file to someone else and overwrite the original (or later delete it) you will no longer have access to the contents of that file.
The source is the file you wish to secure and the output is the secured copy you wish to make. As stated before you can overwrite the source with the secured copy by making the output the same as the source.
Decryption:
By pressing the DECRYPT button (the right hand button) you enter the screen which allows you to make the contents of a secured (encrypted) file available to you.
You will only be allowed to decrypt a file which has been encrypted with you as the recipient.
The source is the file you wish to decrypt and the output is the readable copy you wish to make. As with encryption, you can overwrite the original file with the decrypted version, and no longer have a secured copy.
Drag and Drop:
The quickest and easiest way to use In Confidence is through dragging files from File Manager (on Windows 3.1, 3.11) or My Computer and Explorer (on Windows 95) and dropping them onto the ENCRYPT or DECRYPT buttons.
To simplify this even more the In Confidence screen can be reduced to just the buttons by double clicking the left mouse button on the blank space adjacent to the DECRYPT button. The normal screen can be regained by repeating the process.
When a file (or files - yes you can process many at once) is dropped onto the ENCRPT button a screen appears giving you the option to process each file separately, all together, skip a file or cancel the operation. As before as you process a file you will be asked for the recipient.
Dropping a file (or files) on the DECRYPT button produces a similar screen allowing you to process a single file at a time, all together, skip a file or cancel the operation.
NOTE: The original files are overwritten, so an encrypted version is no longer available and the information is readily readable.
For you to encrypt a file so that only another designated person can read it, you must first obtain part of their Unique User Identity File - this is their username.PKY file, and place it in your In Confidence directory on your computer (normally c:\inconf). If two people have used the same User Name for their Unique User Identity, you can rename the file, but it must end with .PKY.
Similarly for someone to communicate securely with you, you must give them your username.PKY file from your own In Confidence directory.
DO NOT give others your username.FKS file.
The encrypted files produced by In Confidence are all in text. If you open an encrypted file with Notepad you will see some information used to decrypt the file and a jumble of characters - this is your information. Having a text file allows you to put the text of the message into Electronic Mail or Internet Mail. This may be done as a file attachment or by inserting the text into the message. When inserting the text of an encrypted file you must include all the text (from 'SENA' to the end).
To read a file that has been inserted into an Electronic Mail message you must save the text and delete all the information down to 'SENA', which marks the beginning of the encrypted file. The file can then be decrypted.
