Comments on: DropBox + TrueCrypt: Secure Online File Storage

By: Dropbox + Truecrypt, ie. online storage with encryption » preissler.co.uk

Dropbox + Truecrypt, ie. online storage with encryption » preissler.co.uk — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:01:21 +0000

[...] Dropbox and Truecrypt [...]

By: Anon Baker

Anon Baker — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:32:14 +0000

I imagine this would work fairly well using EncFs. It’s encryption on a per file basis, not an entire encrypted volume. So it should work fairly well with dropbox. You have your encrypted folder on dropbox and you just mount it like so:

encfs /dropbox_encrypted_folder_path /mnt/enc_drop

or whatever, and unmount using: “fusermount -u /mnt/enc_drop”.

Having said that I have never used dropbox, just set up my account there, so I might not understand how it works properly. It would avoid the problem of having to upload the entire 256 mb partition every time.

The other problem is accessing the files under windows, I’m not sure if encfs filesystems can be mounted in windows, maybe someone else could clear this up…

By: Mr Anon

Mr Anon — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:30:23 +0000

So, in conclusion….how does it work?!

If you upload a TrueCrypt volume, say 256mb, and then mount the volume, change one small file, and unmount the volume does DropBox have to upload the ‘entire’ 256mb volume file, or just the changes to that file?

I know that it won’t be able to ’see’ the changes that happen inside the encrypted volume (annoying at best) but will it need to re-upload/download the entire file on every PC that that DropBox is configured on?

Be good to clear this one up.

One more question – is there any application that will let you encrypt you files ‘as you copy’ them to the DropBox? So that’s on a per file basis , not per encrypted volume basis? Be nice to know that too!

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:10:51 +0000

It looked promising at 1st, but an hour later and I have reached the same conlusion as T-Dub…its a shame because it is very close to being useful. I dont know why dropbox does not offer encryption as a standard feature. Like a number of others I too am reluctant to leave open files on an open server owned by a company I know nothing about.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:16:33 +0000

Dropbox sounds great but it lacks some important features like backing up USB, network and external drives. That’s why I decided to use SafeCopy backup. It provides the above features plus I can use one account for both my Mac and Pc.

By: Online Activity for March 20th | Creeva's World 2.0

Online Activity for March 20th | Creeva's World 2.0 — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:01:24 +0000

[...] Items of Interest » Blog Archive » DropBox + TrueCrypt: Secure Online File Storage [...]

By: Dropbox, Aspire One - revisited « Crooked Spoke

Dropbox, Aspire One - revisited « Crooked Spoke — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:34:32 +0000

[...] against Dropbox per se, but certainly a consideration for people like me who would like to use the Dropbox + TrueCrypt duo from multiple platforms. After all, as they say, if it’s not dependable at all times, [...]

By: ozmo

ozmo — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:30:56 +0000

Dropbox only transfers the changes. Now, being an encrypted file, you can count on more than a few bytes to be changed throughout the Truecrypt volume, but at least it’s done in the background, and by the time you travel to the other site where your other end of the Dropbox is, it should be there and ready to go, automatically.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:25:33 +0000

Thanx for this article…

So if you add a 256 MB truecrypt-file to your dropbox it will have to be up- & downloaded once, of course. But then, if you open the container and add a few files, won’t it have to up- & download (on the other pc) the whole thing again? Or just the changes?

By the way, you could also create a growing container, I guess?

By: Dropbox, Jungledisk and Truecrypt « Noppatech

Dropbox, Jungledisk and Truecrypt « Noppatech — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:53:21 +0000

[...] Secure online storage with Dropbox and Truecypt [...]