Sending a secure message over the web can be far more complicated than we imagine. Unless you use automated tools capable of properly encrypting the content, it's up to the user to take the necessary precautions. One possible solution for sharing protected text and binary files is EncryptPad, a small portable note pad with symmetric encryption support, password and/or key protection, and a very robust password generator.
Privacy or Paranoia?
Some call it paranoia, others call it privacy. The debate shows no sign of ending in the short or medium term, and both sides refuse to give in. Federal agencies and allied journalistic media that attack encryption technologies, governments that virtually declare war on certain products because they cannot analyze their content (as is the case with Brazil and WhatsApp, which has already been blocked three times this year), Big Data trying to know everything about our tastes, and on the other end, the user, trying to respond to all this as effectively as possible. Suppose that user needs to share a series of passwords with a relative, or something more delicate like a credit card number, or the credentials for an online banking session. Sending that data via WhatsApp might not be practical, and a regular email isn't a good idea either. There are many methods to encrypt text files, but EncryptPad is one of the most interesting.
A Note Pad with Encryption
At first glance, EncryptPad can be seen as a portable note pad, and if no security parameters are configured, it works exactly like that. The difference is that the user has the option to protect their text with a password, a key, or both at the same time. EncryptPad works with two main file formats: the first is GPG, compatible with any OpenPGP-based tool, recommended when the recipient of the document does not have a copy of EncryptPad. GPG does not allow double protection with password and key (you have to choose one or the other), but that's where EncryptPad's internal format, EPD, comes in. This makes the document lose compatibility with OpenPGP, but if the other user has EncryptPad and they agreed on a password beforehand, an extra layer of security is enabled.
Tutorials and Additional Features
The official EncryptPad page offers four tutorials that explain how to create passwords and keys for your files. Among its secondary features, we find encryption of binary files (images, videos, executables, etc.), and a password generator with several levels of complexity and a maximum of 128 characters, more than enough in most cases. EncryptPad is FLOSS, cross-platform, very lightweight, and at its core, not too complicated to use.
