[alterego]

Is there a way to password protect the files on my USB thumb drive?

It doesn't need to be NSA level encryption or anything. I just have some files from my work as a union steward and some creative writing on it. I'd like them to not be accessible to someone if my thumb drive were lost or stolen.

Would like the solution to be easy and preferablly, free.

Thanks

[Nephilim]

First: Who is the drive made by? I have a sandisk thumbdrive, and they a program called "Cruzerlock" you can download for free from their website. I have no idea if the program checks to see if the USB drive it is on, is a sandisk product or not.

Here is one program I looked at a few months ago:
http://www.cypherix.com/cryptainerle/index.htm

It comes highly recommended... I ended up not using it because it didn't meet my needs. I believe its encryption "containers" were limited to like 5 megs in size, or something small like that. I was encrypting large media files. For documents and even pictures thats a fine size though.

Now here is the important part about any kind of encryption you use... you need to have access to the program to do the encrypting and decrypting.

With "Cruzerlock" I keep a copy of it on the USB drive itself (it isn't too big, so its not an issue to keep it on there.) If you use a program that is only on your home PC or your work PC for example (and cannot be put on the flash drive itself) then you are limited to accessing the data at the terminals the program is installed on. If you can keep it on the drive itself then you can plug it into any compatible computer.

[alterego]

[i] If you can keep it on the drive itself then you can plug it into any compatible computer. [/B]

That's exactly what I'm looking for. I do need to access these files on other computers (other wise the thumb drive doesn't help me) but I forgot to include that in the post.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Thanks I'll try that out when I get a chance.

[Nephilim]

Originally posted by alterego
That's exactly what I'm looking for. I do need to access these files on other computers (other wise the thumb drive doesn't help me) but I forgot to include that in the post.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Thanks I'll try that out when I get a chance.

Anytime... and definately check the makers website.

I searched for a few -days- looking for an encryption program that met my needs, only to check the sandisk website and find out that they had a program that did everything I needed called "Cruzerlock 2" available for free. Damn!