Ricoh EncryptEase: CD-R Password Protection Made Easy
by Purav Sanghani on February 7, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
EncryptEase Complete Software - Extracting Encrypted Files
Copying encrypted files back to the hard disk drive is even more simple than encrypting and burning to the media. Once a prerecorded disc has been inserted into a drive, the EncryptEase software will list the files automatically and allow us to select and copy the files back to the hard drive.
Once we select the files that we want to extract and click on "Copy to hard disk drive", a dialog box will come up prompting us for the session password.
Clicking on "OK" will begin the file extraction process.
The process is now complete. The files that we selected to be encrypted on Ricoh's EncryptEase media is now back on the hard disk drive intact and ready to be worked with. The final result is a hybrid disc where all we can see is the file listing of the EncryptEase software when browsing.
To access any of the protected sessions, we are required to use the included software and to enter the password that we decided. To any normal optical drive, the hidden sessions are just that, completely hidden from view.
Many of you will ask: is this encryption method crackable? We are hoping not, but too often, we have seen systems hacked and copy protection and encryption cracked to allow hackers to retrieve sensitive data. Since this is a new release, we may have some time before the system is broken, or we may never see the system broken at all. We will work with Ricoh to bring the latest in this type of news as data protection is a very critical business.
Copying encrypted files back to the hard disk drive is even more simple than encrypting and burning to the media. Once a prerecorded disc has been inserted into a drive, the EncryptEase software will list the files automatically and allow us to select and copy the files back to the hard drive.
Once we select the files that we want to extract and click on "Copy to hard disk drive", a dialog box will come up prompting us for the session password.
Clicking on "OK" will begin the file extraction process.
The process is now complete. The files that we selected to be encrypted on Ricoh's EncryptEase media is now back on the hard disk drive intact and ready to be worked with. The final result is a hybrid disc where all we can see is the file listing of the EncryptEase software when browsing.
To access any of the protected sessions, we are required to use the included software and to enter the password that we decided. To any normal optical drive, the hidden sessions are just that, completely hidden from view.
Many of you will ask: is this encryption method crackable? We are hoping not, but too often, we have seen systems hacked and copy protection and encryption cracked to allow hackers to retrieve sensitive data. Since this is a new release, we may have some time before the system is broken, or we may never see the system broken at all. We will work with Ricoh to bring the latest in this type of news as data protection is a very critical business.
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tygrus - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
I can understand that hiding the data in another section of the CD makes it harder to extract, the system should not rely on this. Other tools could be used to copy or extract the raw data. It would have been better to have the software to use the CD to be self-suficient and require no driver to be installed. How long before zombe PC's are decrypting CD's ?Webmaster: Can you please add the title of the article/thread to the top of the page a link to open the thread in a new window (or inline frame). This would make it easier to reference and quote.
tygrus - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
No edit ...spelling corrections ...
self-sufficient
zombie
chilled - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
Why isn't it just possible to have the software write the data that is pre-recorded onto the disc at burn time, instead of in advance?Wouldn't this mean that any media could be used, instead of paying $5 per CDR....?
artifex - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
Having a program ridealong on every disc is an unnecessary waste of space, once you've had the opportunity to install the driver once. Basically, this seems like an excuse to take BestCrypt or DriveCrypt type software to a per-disc fee structure. Only the software sounds much more limited. And it certainly locks you into Windows for data retrieval, later.Oh, and what do you do when you want to back up these encrypted disks? And how come you can't browse the data in these files transparently, but have to copy them to the hard drive?
Calin - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
This is nothing different than having a file compressed with password. I wonder how well this system survives to a storage error... in a normal CD, only the "scratched" file is lost, in this way it might be the entire session is lost.Agree with the "per disk" fee, and it is certanly too expensive, as you could buy 10 normal CDs for the price of one of these
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
EncryptEase is a good idea, but at a suggested retail of $6.99 for a 600MB CD-R disk and an actual selling price of more than $5 per CD-R it is probably too expensive to attract many home users. With the really cheap prices of CD-R blanks, CD-RW,DVD and DVD-RW blanks, more than $5 a disk for just 600MB of Data Storage, no matter how secure, seems very expensive for home users.If Ricoh could do this for DVD and have it work for RW media it might make some cost sense.
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
$5 for one 600MB CD-R that has some burning/encryption software included on the disc, when instead you could buy about 25 normal CD-R discs for the same price. Oh, I can really see these special discs flying off the shelves. Not.Strange that the price of the discs was not mentioned in the article...
Googer - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - link
How is this differant or any better than the securecord offerd by my Plextor Premieum?http://plextor.com/english/products/Premium.html">http://plextor.com/english/products/Premium.html