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Multi-Platform Encrypted Disk Image Formats?

Posted by Cliff on from the secure-and-portable-data-transportation dept.

LockedDisk asks: I'm looking at an application that will use USB flash devices to distribute information that, while not "top-secret", is sensitive enough that I'd prefer not to distribute it in plaintext. It'll be accessed from multiple platforms by the users who get them. What I'm hoping to find is a tool to build encrypted disk images that can be mounted on Windows, MacOS X, and hopefully Linux as well. What I'd do in distributing these is put the encrypted image on the device, with mounters already on the thumb drive. Users would be able to simply use the right mounter for their platform. For instance, I know PGPdisk would support the multi-platform part, but the mounter doesn't look like it's very well-suited to what I'm looking for. Mac .DMG files can be encrypted, but I know of no way to mount them on any other platform. Any ideas, folks?"

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. CDROM iso by Visaris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not use CDROM ios images? It's standard, supported on every platform, and the software should be free. For windows, try Deamon Tools (read only). If you need read and write access, you may have to find some special software to make the .iso files to work, but I know It's possible.

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  2. One way by zobo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've wished for something similar in the past. One solution that occurred to me would be to create an encrypted loopback filesystem under Linux (details here). For those not familiar with this scheme, it essentially encapsulates a filesystem in a regular file and [en|de]crypts it at the kernel level.

    One potential way to access this from Windows would be using Namespace Extensions. I believe this is the way that "special folders" such as Control Panel and Scheduled Tasks are integrated into the Explorer. It would seem to be straightforward for someone knowledgable in the area to create a Namespace Extension that could mount an encrypted loopback filesystem created in Linux.

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  3. Samba VFS by lkaos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you're adventurous, you could use Samba as the front end (since it compiles and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux) and write a custom VFS module to read whatever kind of image you want. The easiest thing to do would be to take something like ramfs from Linux and port it to userspace/samba. That would provide a portable way to share front-ends (keeping in mind three copies of Samba isn't exactly tiny)....

    And for platforms that don't support CIFS natively (are there any of this now a days?) you can use jCIFS :)

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