Improvements

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Evan Su 2022-06-26 16:58:00 -04:00 committed by GitHub
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@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ While being simple, Picocrypt also strives to be powerful in the hands of knowle
<li><strong>Comments</strong>: Use this to store notes, information, and text along with the file (it won't be encrypted). For example, you can put a description of the file you're encrypting before sending it to someone. When the person you sent it to drops the file into Picocrypt, your description will be shown to that person.</li>
<li><strong>Keyfiles</strong>: Picocrypt supports the use of keyfiles as an additional form of authentication (or the only form of authentication). Not only can you use multiple keyfiles, but you can also require the correct order of keyfiles to be present for a successful decryption to occur. A particularly good use case of multiple keyfiles is creating a shared volume, where each person holds a keyfile, and all of them (and their keyfiles) must be present in order to decrypt the shared volume.</li>
<li><strong>Paranoid mode</strong>: Using this mode will encrypt your data with both XChaCha20 and Serpent in a cascade fashion, and use HMAC-SHA3 to authenticate data instead of BLAKE2b. This is recommended for protecting top-secret files and provides the highest level of practical security attainable. In order for a hacker to crack your encrypted data, both the XChaCha20 cipher and the Serpent cipher must be broken, assuming you've chosen a good password. It's safe to say that in this mode, your files are impossible to crack.</li>
<li><strong>Reed-Solomon</strong>: This feature is very useful if you are planning to archive important data on a cloud provider or external medium for a long time. If checked, Picocrypt will use the Reed-Solomon error correction code to add 8 extra bytes for every 128 bytes to prevent file corruption. This means that up to ~3% of your file can corrupt and Picocrypt will still be able to correct the errors and decrypt your files with no corruption. Of course, if your file corrupts very badly (e.g., you dropped your hard drive), Picocrypt won't be able to fully recover your files, but it will try its best to recover what it can. Note that this option will slow down encryption and decryption considerably.</li>
<li><strong>Reed-Solomon</strong>: This feature is very useful if you are planning to archive important data on a cloud provider or external medium for a long time. If checked, Picocrypt will use the Reed-Solomon error correction code to add 8 extra bytes for every 128 bytes to prevent file corruption. This means that up to ~3% of your file can corrupt and Picocrypt will still be able to correct the errors and decrypt your files with no corruption. Of course, if your file corrupts very badly (e.g., you dropped your hard drive), Picocrypt won't be able to fully recover your files, but it will try its best to recover what it can. Note that this option may slow down encryption and decryption speeds.</li>
<li><strong>Force decrypt</strong>: Picocrypt automatically checks for file integrity upon decryption. If the file has been modified or is corrupted, Picocrypt will automatically delete the output for the user's safety. If you would like to override these safeguards, check this option. Also, if this option is checked and the Reed-Solomon feature was used on the encrypted volume, Picocrypt will attempt to recover as much of the file as possible during decryption.</li>
<li><strong>Split files into chunks</strong>: Don't feel like dealing with gargantuan files? No worries! With Picocrypt, you can choose to split your output file into custom-sized chunks, so large files can become more manageable and easier to upload to cloud providers. Simply choose a unit (KiB, MiB, GiB, or TiB) and enter your desired chunk size for that unit. To decrypt the chunks, simply drag one of them into Picocrypt and the chunks will be automatically recombined during decryption.</li>
</ul>
@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ No, I don't plan on supporting Android or iOS because they are very different fr
**Why is Picocrypt not updated frequently?**
People seem to have the notion that software must be constantly updated to stay relevant and secure. While this may be true for a lot of the software we use, it is not for Picocrypt. Picocrypt is good software and good software doesn't need constant updates to remain relevant and secure. Good software will always be good software.
People seem to have the notion that software must be constantly updated to stay relevant and secure. While this may be true for a lot of the software we use today, it is not for Picocrypt. Picocrypt is "good software" and good software doesn't need constant updates to remain relevant and secure. Good software will always be good software.
# Thank Yous
A thank you from the bottom of my heart to the people on Open Collective who have made a significant contribution: