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@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ Picocrypt is a very small (hence <i>Pico</i>), very simple, yet very secure encr
Please donate to Picocrypt on <a href="https://opencollective.com/picocrypt">Open Collective</a> (crypto is accepted) to raise money for a potential audit from Cure53. Because this is a project that I spend many hours on and make no money from, I cannot pay for an audit myself. <i>Picocrypt needs support from its community.</i>
# Downloads
## Windows
Picocrypt for Windows is as simple as it gets. To download the latest, standalone, and portable executable for Windows, click <a href="https://github.com/HACKERALERT/Picocrypt/releases/download/1.24/Picocrypt.exe">here</a>. If Windows Defender or your antivirus flags Picocrypt as a virus, please do your part and submit it as a false positive for the betterment of everyone.
@ -26,14 +25,31 @@ The Paranoid Pack is a compressed archive that contains executables for every ve
Why should you use Picocrypt instead of BitLocker, NordLocker, VeraCrypt, AxCrypt, or 7-Zip? Here are a few reasons why you should choose Picocrypt:
<ul>
<li>Unlike NordLocker, BitLocker, AxCrypt, and most cloud storage providers, Picocrypt and its dependencies are completely open-source and auditable. You can verify for yourself that there aren't any backdoors or flaws.</li>
<li>Picocrypt is <i>tiny</i>. While NordLocker is over 50MB and VeraCrypt is over 20MB, Picocrypt sits at just 3MB, about the size of a medium-resolution photo. And that's not all - Picocrypt is portable (doesn't need to be installed) and doesn't require administrator/root privileges.</li>
<li>Picocrypt is <i>tiny</i>. While NordLocker is over 50MB and VeraCrypt is over 20MB, Picocrypt sits at just 2MB, about the size of a medium-resolution photo. And that's not all - Picocrypt is portable (doesn't need to be installed) and doesn't require administrator/root privileges.</li>
<li>Picocrypt is easier and more productive to use than VeraCrypt. To encrypt files with VeraCrypt, you'd have to spend at least five minutes setting up a volume. With Picocrypt's simple UI, all you have to do is drag and drop your files, enter a password, and hit Start. All the complex procedures are handled by Picocrypt internally. Who said secure encryption can't be simple?</li>
<li>Picocrypt is designed for security. 7-Zip is an archive utility and not an encryption tool, so its focus is not on security. Picocrypt, however, is built with security as the number one priority. Every part of Picocrypt exists for a reason and anything that could impact the security of Picocrypt is removed. Picocrypt is built with cryptography you can trust.</li>
<li>Picocrypt authenticates data in addition to protecting it, preventing hackers from maliciously modifying sensitive data. This is useful when you are sending encrypted files over an insecure channel and want to be sure that it arrives untouched.</li>
<li>Picocrypt actively protects encrypted header data from corruption by adding extra Reed-Solomon parity bytes, so if part of a volume's header (which contains important cryptographic components) corrupts (e.g., hard drive bit rot), Picocrypt can still recover the header and decrypt your data with a high success rate. Picocrypt can also encode the entire volume with Reed-Solomon to prevent any corruption to your important files.</li>
</ul>
Still not convinced? See below for even more reasons why Picocrypt stands out from the rest.
# Comparison
Here's a brief comparison of Picocrypt to other popular encryption tools.
| | Picocrypt | VeraCrypt | 7-Zip (GUI) | NordLocker | BitLocker | AxCrypt |
| -------------- | -------------- | -------------- | -------------- | -------------- | -------------- | -------------- |
| Free |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |🟧 Partially |🟧 Partially |🟧 Partially |
| Open Source |✅ GPLv3 |✅ Multi |✅ LGPL |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |
| Cross-Platform |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |
| Size |✅ 2MB |❌ 20MB |✅ 2MB |❌ 60MB |✅ Included |🟧 8MB |
| Portable |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |❌ No |❌ No |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |
| Permissions |✅ None |❌ Admin |❌ Admin |❌ Admin |❌ Admin |❌ Admin |
| Ease-Of-Use |✅ Easy |❌ Hard |✅ Easy |🟧 Medium |🟧 Medium |✅ Easy |
| Key Derivation |✅ Argon2 |🆗 PBKDF2 |❌ SHA256 |✅ Argon2 |❓Unknown |🆗 PBKDF2 |
| Data Integrity |✅ Always |❌ No |❌ No |✅ Always |❓Unknown |✅ Always |
| Reed-Solomon |✅ Yes |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |❌ No |
| Compression |✅ Yes |❌ No |✅ Yes |❌ No |✅ Yes |✅ Yes |
| Phones Home |✅ Never |✅ Never |✅ Never |❌ Analytics |❓Unknown |❌ Accounts |
| Audited |🟧 Planned |✅ Yes |❌ No |❓Unknown |❓Unknown |❌ No |
# Features
Picocrypt is a very simple tool, and most users will intuitively understand how to use it in a few seconds. On a basic level, simply dropping your files, entering a password, and hitting Start is all that's needed to encrypt your files. Pretty simple, right?
@ -41,12 +57,12 @@ Picocrypt is a very simple tool, and most users will intuitively understand how
While being simple, Picocrypt also strives to be powerful in the hands of knowledgeable and advanced users. Thus, there are some additional options that you may use to suit your needs.
<ul>
<li><strong>Password generator</strong>: Picocrypt provides a secure password generator that you can use to create cryptographically secure passwords. You can customize the password length, as well as the types of characters to include.</li>
<li><strong>File metadata</strong>: Use this to store notes, information, and text along with the file (it won't be encrypted). For example, you can put a description of the file you're encrypting before sending it to someone. When the person you sent it to drops the file into Picocrypt, your description will be shown to that person.</li>
<li><strong>Comments</strong>: Use this to store notes, information, and text along with the file (it won't be encrypted). For example, you can put a description of the file you're encrypting before sending it to someone. When the person you sent it to drops the file into Picocrypt, your description will be shown to that person.</li>
<li><strong>Keyfiles</strong>: Picocrypt supports the use of keyfiles as an additional form of authentication. Not only can you use multiple keyfiles, but you can also require the correct order of keyfiles to be present, for a successful decryption to occur. A particularly good use case of multiple keyfiles is creating a shared volume, where each person holds a keyfile, and all of them (and their keyfiles) must be present in order to decrypt the shared volume.</li>
<li><strong>Paranoid mode</strong>: Using this mode will encrypt your data with both XChaCha20 and Serpent in a cascade fashion, and use HMAC-SHA3 to authenticate data instead of BLAKE2b. This is recommended for protecting top-secret files and provides the highest level of practical security attainable. In order for a hacker to crack your encrypted data, both the XChaCha20 cipher and the Serpent cipher must be broken, assuming you've chosen a good password.</li>
<li><strong>Prevent corruption using Reed-Solomon</strong>: This feature is very useful if you are planning to archive important data on a cloud provider or external medium for a long time. If checked, Picocrypt will use the Reed-Solomon error correction code to add 8 extra bytes for every 128 bytes to prevent file corruption. This means that up to ~3% of your file can corrupt and Picocrypt will still be able to correct the errors and decrypt your files with no corruption. Of course, if your file corrupts very badly (e.g., you dropped your hard drive), Picocrypt won't be able to fully recover your files, but it will try its best to recover what it can. Note that this option will slow down encryption and decryption considerably.</li>
<li><strong>Keep decrypted output even if it's corrupted or modified</strong>: Picocrypt automatically checks for integrity upon decryption. If the file has been modified or is corrupted, Picocrypt will automatically delete the output for the user's safety. If you want to keep the corrupted or modified data after decryption, check this option. Also, if this option is checked and the Reed-Solomon feature was used on the encrypted file, Picocrypt will attempt to recover as much of the file as possible during decryption.</li>
<li><strong>Split files into chunks</strong>: Don't feel like dealing with gargantuan files? No worries! With Picocrypt, you can choose to split your output file into custom-sized chunks, so large files can become more manageable and easier to upload to cloud providers. Simply choose a unit (KiB, MiB, or GiB) and enter your desired number for that unit. To decrypt the chunks, simply drag one of them into Picocrypt, and the chunks will be automatically recombined during decryption.</li>
<li><strong>Paranoid mode</strong>: Using this mode will encrypt your data with both XChaCha20 and Serpent in a cascade fashion, and use HMAC-SHA3 to authenticate data instead of BLAKE2b. This is recommended for protecting top-secret files and provides the highest level of practical security attainable. In order for a hacker to crack your encrypted data, both the XChaCha20 cipher and the Serpent cipher must be broken, assuming you've chosen a good password. It's safe to say that in this mode, your files are impossible to crack.</li>
<li><strong>Reed-Solomon</strong>: This feature is very useful if you are planning to archive important data on a cloud provider or external medium for a long time. If checked, Picocrypt will use the Reed-Solomon error correction code to add 8 extra bytes for every 128 bytes to prevent file corruption. This means that up to ~3% of your file can corrupt and Picocrypt will still be able to correct the errors and decrypt your files with no corruption. Of course, if your file corrupts very badly (e.g., you dropped your hard drive), Picocrypt won't be able to fully recover your files, but it will try its best to recover what it can. Note that this option will slow down encryption and decryption considerably.</li>
<li><strong>Force decrypt</strong>: Picocrypt automatically checks for file integrity upon decryption. If the file has been modified or is corrupted, Picocrypt will automatically delete the output for the user's safety. If you would like to override these safeguards, check this option. Also, if this option is checked and the Reed-Solomon feature was used on the encrypted volume, Picocrypt will attempt to recover as much of the file as possible during decryption.</li>
<li><strong>Split files into chunks</strong>: Don't feel like dealing with gargantuan files? No worries! With Picocrypt, you can choose to split your output file into custom-sized chunks, so large files can become more manageable and easier to upload to cloud providers. Simply choose a unit (KiB, MiB, or GiB) and enter your desired chunk size for that unit. To decrypt the chunks, simply drag one of them into Picocrypt and the chunks will be automatically recombined during decryption.</li>
</ul>
# Security
@ -62,7 +78,7 @@ I highly recommend you join Picocrypt's subreddit because all updates and polls
# Stargazers
How's Picocrypt doing? Take a look below to find out.
[![Stargazers over time](https://starchart.cc/HACKERALERT/Picocrypt.svg)](https://starchart.cc/HACKERALERT/Picocrypt)
![Stargazers Over Time](https://starchart.cc/HACKERALERT/Picocrypt.svg)
# Donations
If you find Picocrypt useful, please consider tipping my <a href="https://paypal.me/evanyiwensu">PayPal</a>. I'm providing this software completely free of charge, and would love to have some supporters that will motivate me to continue my work on Picocrypt.