All that remains are the encrypted versions stored in the EncryptedFiles folder within the OneDrive folder, both online and on my hard drive. The unencrypted versions of the files are no longer accessible. Once I dismount the EncryptedFiles folder, its corresponding drive, drive L:, disappears. As changes are saved to disk, the corresponding encrypted version of the file is updated appropriately. It’s just a file, and I can manipulate it like any other. I can continue to work on the file on L: to my heart’s content. Note that only the encrypted version of the file has been uploaded. It uploads this encrypted file and distributes it to all my machines running OneDrive. Next, OneDrive notices a new file has appeared on disk within the OneDrive folder. ![]() This is the only representation of the file that is physically written to disk. This extremely obscure filename (along with others) is Cryptomator’s encrypted version of my document. The file that was saved to L: is automatically encrypted and placed in the folder I named EncryptedFiles. I create a Word document on drive L: L:\MyPrivateInformation.docxĪs soon as I save that document to drive L:, new files and folders appear within the EncryptedFiles folder:Ĭ:\Users\leon\OneDrive\EncryptedFiles\d\2G\BQCY3SUZEVRU3MRAGLO6C62JGGGYZJ\5Y5RR6LM5SKSFZ6FIKULKNNBVQ3Y6DDTNGAKKX3VI2N72ZWM6KUOIGWL2AWCGB2TMY= ![]() I set up the passphrase required to mount it again in the future. Next, I install Cryptomator and configure it to mount “C:\Users\leon\OneDrive\EncryptedFiles” as drive L. I don’t place any files in this folder directly. One sub-folder within my OneDrive folder is: C:\Users\leon\OneDrive\EncryptedFiles I have many files and folders that automatically synchronize with the OneDrive servers, as well as on all other machines on which I have OneDrive installed. ![]() It contains all the files and folders that are part of my OneDrive cloud storage. 1 On my machine, there’s a folder: C:\Users\leon\OneDrive It’s only when the folder is mounted using Cryptomator that the files are visible in their decrypted form in the virtual drive. The files in the original folder on disk are always encrypted. There’s little noticeable impact on performance, since accessing the disk, not performing the encryption, is the slowest part of the operation. Anything read from that drive causes the corresponding encrypted file in the source folder to be read and decrypted on the fly. Anything written to drive L: is encrypted and written to the folder you specified. When you “ mount” this folder using Cryptomator - providing the passphrase to do so - another drive letter appears, which I’ll call L. You select a folder to be encrypted by Cryptomator and assign it a passphrase to encrypt the contents. The Cryptomator modelĬryptomator encrypts file-by-file, which is perfect for cloud storage providers like Dropbox, OneDrive, and others that upload and download individual files as they change. If you encrypt your data before it’s uploaded to an online storage provider, you, and only you, control access to it. The solution is simple: encrypt the data yourself. Provider-supplied encryption is nice, but it doesn’t protect us as well as we’d like. In addition, should someone hack your account, the data would be available to them unencrypted, just as it’s available to you. The service providers can also turn your unencrypted data over to the authorities should that ever be required. The problem is that since they encrypted it, they can decrypt it.Īnd while the folks at major online storage providers are professionals with no interest in snooping around in your data, there have been rare instances of the so-called “rogue employee” poking around. Many online cloud storage providers encrypt your data. Cryptomator makes the encryption transparent by allowing you to designate a folder within your cloud service that is automatically and transparently encrypted before uploading and decrypted when used on your device. You can store files safely in the cloud if you encrypt them before uploading.
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