Password - files
 

Hi,

Is there away to simply have some sort of text file, and it is passworded,

I know about access etc being root or a member of a group, but i would live another layer of encryption for secret data, such as bank info ect

thanks Paul

changing permissions to a file automatically prevents other users to see it. With the command chmod your files can be given permissions you want. If you only want yourself to be able to see the file, then you should give a file permissions such as:

chmod 700 filename

This will give you all the rights over the file (reading, writing, and executing the file) and prevento other users to see the contents of the file.

Changing permissions is not the same as encryption. If root gets hacked, all the data is there. I think you want gpg. http://www.gnupg.org/

The vi editor has an encryption feature: When in vi, type

:X

and you will be asked for an encryption key. Save the file. Next time you open it you'll be asked for the key, without it the file is unreadable. For more advanced encryption, have a look at the openssl program.

thanks thats greta il try it out :-)

what you want is called 'symmetric encryption' (where the encryption key is the same as the decryption key); an example is Blowfish. Of course, you could also use a public-key (asymmetric) encryption, but it's generally slower, since the keys are larger.

Hope this helps,

Jonas