旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � � � ENCRYPT.EXE � � � 突袴袴袴袴袴袴袴� 10 March, 1994 11:06 PM The program ENCRYPT.EXE is my finest effort to date! It is "user friendly," has several "escape hatches," checks the key strokes that you enter much more carefully than the usual QuickBASIC commands, and... encrypts files. I -should- now regale you with a long and wandering text piece about "Secrecy" or... give you the text piece about Computer Viruses. And... of course there are the two half-written adventures of my partner in crime "JR," and me; and the one about my college friend "Ham." Ham owned a fire engine. Or... I could tell you about Sidney the architect; or Bruno the car mechanic. Or the time we... but... later... I am sort of burned out right now after making ENCRYPT.EXE. Actually not burned out as much as -pleased-. ENCRYPT.EXE is a real hot-dog file encrypter that is sooooooo very simple it boggles the imagination. Compared to the stuff that I have downloaded from BBSs it looks like a child's toy, but looks maybe deceiving. Now... if you are a -real- programmer, and you have downloaded some of my stuff, you know I can't do complicated "code." Yes, you are right, this encrypting formula is very simple. You can duplicate it with four lines of QuickBASIC code. When I get around to it, I will upload the source code to the MSBASIC Forum on CompuServe so that my fellow bit twisters can see how -dumb- the code is. But for anybody but a demon hacker, once you encrypt a file with ENCRYPT.EXE, I don't think any FBI agent could decode your file. He (or she) would have to send it back to the mainframe in Washington for "de-encryption" and that computer could decode it in .... Oh.... about six seconds. But for us ordinary mortals who carry diskettes of fairly important information... we have gnawing fears. Fears that if we lose the "Employee's Evaluation CheckSheet" or the "Payroll Cost Analysis for 1994," or the "Proposed Personnel Layoff Schedules," and somebody -besides- our boss finds that diskette, we are in deep, well... trouble! So ENCRYPT.EXE can fill a simple need of keeping confidential files.... well... confidential! I know, I know, you're afraid that once you encrypt something, it is gone forever. It may never be recovered -or- the de-encryption process is irreversible. Those are my fears exactly! Well... I won't promise you that can't happen, all I can say is that as long as you remember your PASSWORD -precisely-, it's a long shot. Oh... yeah, before I forget, if you're a lawyer... ENCRYPT.EXE probably won't work for you... ENCRYPT.EXE can sense if you distrust it. Let's spend a little time talking about Passwords. ENCRYPT.EXE uses the password you enter to encrypt the file. The password you enter is "case sensitive." That means that upper and lower case letters are treated as DIFFERENT symbols and any -spaces- you put in the password are -also- part of the password. Using just three letters (let's use my initials, JRD), you can make eight (8) -different- passwords, let me show you: 1. JRD 2. JRd 3. Jrd 4. JrD 4. jRD 5. jrD 7. jRd 8. jrd The formula for calculating the number of different case sensitive passwords is: Two to the power of the number of letters of the Password. "JRD" contains three (3) letters. The formula is 2^3 (the caret ^ is the QuickBASIC symbol for "power"), or 2 times 2 times 2 (2*2*2) or eight (8) different passwords. What's the message? Make your password -LONG- but easy to remember. If you were me (God forbid!) you could use my name as: JOHNRDEPALMA, That's thirteen letters or 8192 possible combinations. If I was feeling frisky, I could use: JoHnRDePaLmA Or.... NowIsTheTimeForAllGoodMenToComeToTheAidofTheirCountry Now... that last one is a hummer, containing 53 letters which makes Hmmmmm.... 9,007,199,254,740,992 possible combinations. Even if some one guessed you used part of your name, they couldn't unencrypt a file made with ENCRYPT.EXE without typing about eight-thousand variations of a thirteen letter password. And then only be able to de-encrypt the file IF they had the exact -spelling- of the password! So, take a file, any file, text, executable, spreadsheet, small large, whatever... load and follow the directions in ENCRYPT.EXE. Save your encrypted file with the same name as the file but with the extension *.ENC, 'so you can recognize that it is a weird and encrypted file. At the end of ENCRYPT.EXE, you will be asked if you want to repeat the process, type "Y" or hit {Enter}. Find the file you encrypted and highlight it. Now... "encrypt" it AGAIN using the extension *.UNE; making very, very (very!) sure you use the same and exact password as you did the first time. Now you can quit ENCRYPT.EXE and check out the these three (don't forget the original file you started with) files. Your original file will be EXACTLY like the one with the *.UNE extension. The one with the *.ENC is encrypted. What's the message? To encrypt a file: 1. Save the original file with an extension you can remember (I use *.ENC). 2. "Encrypt" -the encrypted file- a second time, give it an unencrypted extension (I use *.UNE) MAKE SURE YOU USE THE SAME =EXACT= PASSWORD BOTH TIMES! Has the little candle errrr.... -light-! gone on in your head yet? First pass with ENCRYPT.EXE encrypts, second pass, de-encrypts. You can safely keep ENCRYPT.EXE on any diskette with the encrypted files, as unless someone has your LONG password, it won't do them any good. Again... ENCRYPT.EXE encrypts a file the first time around and -DE-ENCRYPTS- it the second time! What could be simpler? So... I'm goin' it's been a long week, see ya. John De Palma on CompuServe 76076,571