- 1. Switching to Steganographic mode
Check the 4th selection Steganography (EnCrypt & Hide A File In A Picture Or Sound) from
the Process Select menu in order to enter the Steganograhy mode.
When selecting the Steganography feature, the color of the interface window changes to indicate
the activation of the Steganographic mode. However, the following steps:
(step 2). Block Cipher selection,
(step 3). Cipher mode selection,
(step 4). HASH selection,
(step 5). Password typing or file-password selection
remain the same as in a normal EnCryption procedure.
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2. Select the Block Cipher algorithm
A block cipher algorithm needs to be selected.
This is done as detailed in the Cipher Select
menu.
- 3. Select the Cipher encryption mode The user may choose between 2 encryption modes (CTR or CBC). A MAC (message authentication code) is implemented with both modes to insure data integrity. The selection is done as detailed in the Cipher mode Select menu.
- 4. Select the HASH function algorithm One of the HASH function algorithm needs also be selected. This is done as detailed in the HASH Select menu.
Note that when opening 96Crypt, it will auto-position on the last Steganography/Cipher/Mode/HASH
selections that were saved the last time 96Crypt was closed.
- 3. Select the Cipher encryption mode The user may choose between 2 encryption modes (CTR or CBC). A MAC (message authentication code) is implemented with both modes to insure data integrity. The selection is done as detailed in the Cipher mode Select menu.
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5. Use a Strong Password
Type a password in the corresponding field
then re-confirm it for double verification. Make sure to remember it as IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to recover an EnCrypted file with a lost password.
Typed password are case sensitive. They should contain letters and numbers of at least 7 characters.
96Crypt provides an advanced feature that allows the user to select a file of his choice and use it as a password instead of typing the password. Here are some of the advantages:
- The number of variables is much higher in a file-password compared to a typed password, when the file-password is HASHed, this will return a HASH value (key) with an extremely low collision probability. - A file-password could contain any of the 256 ACSII characters, while a typed password is much more limited. - A file-password may be represented in Unicode. A typed password cannot. - A file-password has the highest level of resistance to all known dictionary attacks. - A file-password is totally safe against "possible" key loggers installed on the PC. - Make sure to keep a copy of the file-password in a safe place and NOT to EnCrypt, compress or modify its content in any other way. For the security of your process, 96Crypt will turn the attribute of the selected file-password to read only so it cannot be quickly erased.
You may store a personal file-password of your choice (larger than 7bytes, but smaller than 2.5Mb) on a separate USB key, then use this USB key every time you need to EnCrypt or DeCrypt any of your private Data. The selected file-password could be of any extension/type (jpg, bmp, mp3, exe, dll, txt, bin etc...) or any format (Binary, Hex, Unicode...).
96Crypt requires a file-password larger than 7bytes, but smaller than 2.5Mb.
Whether typed or file-selected, the password will be processed with multiple HASH/SALT rounds to be transformed to a "key". The HASH function returns a fixed length "key" from a variable size user-provided secret password. The "key" will then be fed to the cipher after being properly length-adjusted to meet the cipher's requirements.
While the previous 5 steps have defined all necessary primitives used for the EnCrytion process,
the following steps, mostly deal with Steganography, they define:
(step 6). The selection of the picture or sound file to be used as container.
(step 7). The Steganographic algorithm fixing the size of the file-to-hide versus the container's size.
(step 8). The file to be EnCrypted then Hidden inside the container.
The Previous 4 (Steganography, Cipher, Mode and HASH selection) steps can be simply skipped if the user keeps the same cipher, Mode and HASH algorithms as the last time 96Crypt was closed.
