Dropbox + encfs. Works fine for me on all platforms (Windows/OS X/Linux). It has some rough edges though: File update notifications will refer to the encrypted file, and the browser interface will only show you encrypted file names as well.
Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
21–30 of 36 posts
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#22Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#23http://www.boxcryptor.com/ does client-side encryption for DropBox.
Runs on Win, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android.
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#24There are other services which advertise security, but nothing where you actually are likely to audit the code. Even if their security model is better than what Dropbox is now using, you have to factor in availability issues (Dropbox seems more solid as a business than a lot of the others), functionality, etc. You also need to trust the entire development process, release engineering, and knowing your binaries corres…
After reviewing the options some time ago, I ended up using encfs on top of Dropbox. You still mount and unmount it like Truecrypt or Apple's encrypted disk images, but behind the scenes instead of creating an opaque block device to store the files, the individual files and directories are stored with their names and contents encrypted. I like this method because individual files can be synced (which is the whole purpose of Dropbox), safe syncing does not require unmounting the volume, it can be mounted on multiple computers at the same time, is cross-platfrom, and I think it should be possible to revert individual files to a previous revision (though I've never tried). The main disadvantage, from a security perspective, is that the existence of and approximate size of your files can be easily determined without decrypting. This does not matter for my purposes, but might for some. It is also slightly more complicated to set up, although if you've ever mounted a filesystem from the command line in Unix you should have no problem.
Here is a nice overview of its use on OS X: http://www.packetslave.com/2011/04/21/dropbox-encryption-w-e...
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it possible to use Truecrypt in Dropbox without issues?
Sure. But you remove the benefit of syncing small diffs; you pretty much have to sync the entire truecrypt volume.
My (former) home network backup solution had a truecrypt volume created locally, and rsync'ed to my offsite backup provider (rsync.net). It did not have to send the entire volume for small diffs; in my experience, Truecrypt keeps local changes local in the volume.
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#26http://www.boxcryptor.com/ does client-side encryption for DropBox. Runs on Win, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android.
I've looked at this previously but
* It seems to be closed source
* The German government is involved (Close friends with the US)
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#27I really like JungleDisk (https://www.jungledisk.com/). They have a Mac, Linux and Windows client and encrypt all files locally before uploading to cloud storage providers. You can choose between S3 or Rackspace for your storage.
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#28TitanFile is great! They also sent an email out to customers this week with a preview of their new version and it looked like it had a much nicer UI as well.
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#29Wuala: http://www.wuala.com Data is encrypted with your password on the client side, your password never leaves your PC. They published a paper on their security implemenation: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4032... It allows to synchronize multiple folders and it gives access to a certain number of previous versions. You can also share folders with friends, publicly or via a secret link. It'…
Problem with this approach is sharing and key management.
If you want to send something to someone, that means you need to securely communicate the key to them first or take the SpiderOak approach of "We guarantee security locally but if you share a file = file is shared unencrypted".
Re: Ask HN: Secure Dropbox alternatives?
#30Wuala: http://www.wuala.com Data is encrypted with your password on the client side, your password never leaves your PC. They published a paper on their security implemenation: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4032... It allows to synchronize multiple folders and it gives access to a certain number of previous versions. You can also share folders with friends, publicly or via a secret link. It'…
Problem with this approach is sharing and key management. If you want to send something to someone, that means you need to securely communicate the key to them first or take the SpiderOak approach of "We guarantee security locally but if you share a file = file is shared unencrypted".
True, but if you both are friends on Wuala you can do it easily.
Provided that no man in the middle attacks take place during the "friendship" operation :)