This topic contains 3 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by Prabhukumar R 5 years, 4 months ago.
-
AuthorPosts
-
Richard NewmanI’ve been using 1.7 for years but am considering the upgrade. However, it sounds like some very useful features have been eliminated. But maybe not — that’s why I’m writing this post.
My firstquestion is whether the new version requires that you sign-in with the AxCrypt password every time you: A) Boot up the machine and log in, and B) After a password-protected screensaver kicks in and you enter that password, does AcCrypt require its password again?
My second question is whether the use of a key file has been eliminated? In the old version, it was a very powerful feature that I could store a keyfile on a thumb drive and encrypt files using that file. Even if you got my machine with my password, you couldn’t decrypt without that file, which I chose to not store on the machine. In my house, we have a computer that is shared by a few family members and there are some files with financial records that I want my wife to access but not my kids. Sound like the new version doesn’t support that scenario — if you have the password to AxCrypt on that mchine, you can access any file you encrypted without exception.
Many thanks in advance for the response.
Hello Richard,
Yes, AxCrypt 2 asks you to sign in to your account, which AxCrypt 1 did not. We now use a single sign on model where the same password is used to sign in to our servers and to protect your files. The password that you’re being asked for is the password to your account, which you probably created recently.
AxCrypt will ask the user to sign in to the AxCrypt app when we start up the system.
AxCrypt 2 stays signed in until signed out, just like most similar applications such as your email. Once signed in, you can read, write and update information without having to re-enter the password, until signed out. The files are still encrypted, but your password is remembered until you sign out of AxCrypt. AxCrypt will automatically sign out when the screen saver goes active(when Inactivity Sign Out configured), or you can sign out manually.
Still, We can open/decrypt the AxCrypt 1.x encrypted files with the key file in AxCrypt 2.x. But we can’t encrypt files with the key file in AxCrypt 2.x.
The keyfile feature is only implemented for backward compatibility with AxCrypt 1.7 – so you can open files encrypted then with a keyfile.
We’ve decided not to implemented this feature, because it has caused some problems with very small benefits. You can choose to use a very good password instead – why not use a string similar to what’s in the keyfile for example? Exactly the same level of security.
The problem with keyfiles are that they need to be stored somewhere, and it’s very hard to ensure this is done properly.
We may in the future support various hardware tokens instead.
You can use our key sharing feature to fulfill your requirement. Just create two or more AxCrypt accounts for your wife and kids. Now encrypt a file and key share those files with your wife’s and kids email addresses.
For example, You can key share the financial encrypted files with your wife’s email address only. And key share the encrypted family photos with your kids and wife’s email addresses.
Robert ReinhardtHi,
I have been using AxCrypt V1 for years (I guess it should be around 20). I have to thank you for this excellent piece of software. The usage model is obviously different from what you’ve had in mind for V2. Like most of the family users, I am not very interested in the encryption quality, but mostly in the simplicity of use and definitely in stand-alone operation.
Having different accounts for different access types is overkill. I have many files encrypted and I use 3-5 different passwords. I only type them when I need that file decrypted and file contents are safe even if I allow access to someone else to my computer. And above all, I can decrypt any file without internet access.
It seems that V2 does not allow this use case and is thus useless for my purpose. Or am I wrong / missing something?
Kind regards,
Robert
Hello Robert ,
Sorry to say, AxCrypt 2.x does not support different password for different files feature due to some security reasons. Please refer our blog for more info: https://forum.axcrypt.net/blog/use-of-different-passwords/ .
AxCrypt 2.x will work without internet(offline) also. So no need internet to decrypt the encrypted files.For more information, please visit here https://forum.axcrypt.net/blog/axcrypt-online-vs-offline/ .
Still, you are facing the any quires, please feel free to write a mail to our support support@axcrypt.net
-
AuthorPosts