MaxCrypt 1.x

This page contains answers to commonly asked questions regarding MaxCrypt 1.x.

 (MaxCrypt 1.x is no longer being updated or supported)

 I have forgotten the login name or password. Is there any way to recover my files?

You should use the Emergency Rescue Program that was installed with MaxCrypt. If you can't remember the login name, use the diagnostic function. It will ask you to select an encrypted file and then enter the login name and password for it. You can enter anything for a login, but be sure to enter the correct password. If you do this, it will tell you what the correct login name is for the file. If you forget the password, then there isn't anything that can be done to recover the files.

 I uninstalled MaxCrypt without removing all the files from the users encryption lists. Now I have encrypted files all over my hard drive. How do I decrypt them?

You should use the Emergency Rescue Program that was installed with MaxCrypt. It will scan all of your hard drives to find encrypted files and then give you the opportunity to decrypt them. You can either scan your hard disks or choose a specific location to search. Once the searching is complete, the program will display the number of encrypted files it has found and offer you the ability to enter up to 10 separate login name/password combinations to decrypt all the files. The program will then use these login names and passwords decrypt the files it found.

 How secure is MaxCrypt and how hard would it be for a hacker to decrypt my files?

Twofish is a 256-bit encryption algorithm with no known 16-round attack. This means that a hacker would have to brute force attack a file to decrypt it. Brute force means that the hacker would have to try every possible password to decrypt the file. Even if the hacker had thousands of the fastest computers in the world, all working together to find the password, it could take millions of years to decrypt the file.

What will the difference be between MaxCrypt 1.x and 2.0?

MaxCrypt will be a OTF (On-The-Fly) encryption system. This means that the user will not have encrypt and decrypt files before using them. The files will automatically be decrypted when the user wants to look at it, as the user uses it. Most users won't even know the files are being decrypted as they use them. This method offers many improvements over the current method of decrypting files when starting the computer, and encrypting them when shutting the computer down.

The biggest improvement is in security. The protected files are never decrypted on the disk. The files will only be decrypted into memory for applications to use. This means that the files remain protected on disk, even when being used.

© 2006 KinoCode, Inc.