BoxCryptor for Windows v1.4 Beta 2

Stefan

We're very proud to announce the second beta release for the upcoming v1.4 of BoxCryptor for Windows. In this revision we're improving the user experience for you. This means that using our application becomes even more easy and natural. To reach this we provide several new features that you'll love.

The first is a mechanism to detect installed cloud storage provider applications. This means that BoxCryptor now is able to recognize if Dropbox, Google Drive or SkyDrive is installed. This helps you creating and adding BoxCryptor Drives, as you don't have to select the folder and the path anymore. Of course it's still possible for everyone who uses a different provider to select a custom directory.

Another big improvement is the new application password. In the Advanced View Settings you can enter a password, which you secure the whole application. This helps mostly people who use multiple drives, but want to have a higher security level by not storing the password. Of course it can be annoying to enter multiple passwords in order to mount all drives. In this case you can simply select the application password and store the passwords for the drives. As used we don't have any information about your password. Actually it's not possible to recover it as well, if the password get lost, you have to do a factory reset and re-add your drives.

We also added great new feature is the ability to show the original, encrypted files by selecting the the plaintext file. Sounds a bit complicated, but is very easy. Let's assume that you want to restore a previous version of a specific file. If you use file name encryption this could be a very difficult task, as you don't know the name of the file that is stored on servers of your cloud storage providers. With the new version this becomes very easy. If you right-click a file on the BoxCryptor Drive it will show you a context menu entry to show the encrypted version of this file.

Another additional feature that BoxCryptor 1.4 will bring is support for editing existing drives in Advanced Mode: You’ll be able to edit existing drives, e.g. Auto-mount, Mount for all users, etc.

Ok, as this text getting too long if I explain any feature in detail, here's the complete changelog:

* Added: Options to mount and dismount all drives.
* Added: A application password which can secure the whole application.
* Added: A context menu entry to Windows Explorer to show the encrypted file.
* Added: A password strength indicator.
* Added: Ability to edit drives.
* Modified: Moved the Option to start the application with Windows to Settings Menu.
* Modified: New Unlocked system tray icon and switched meaning (Locked -> No BoxCryptor Drive is mounted, Unlocked -> BoxCryptor Drive is mounted)

IMPORTANT: This is a tested version, but not a stable release. Make sure to make a backup of your data and your configuration file.

You can download BoxCryptor for Windows v1.4 Beta 2 here:

https://www.boxcryptor.com/download/BoxCryptor_v1.4-Beta-2_Setup.exe

It would be great if you could try the new version and we would be very, very happy to hear your feedback!

Geronimo

Seems to be a significant improvement since 1.39 / 1.40b1 which had its obstacles as at least the former loaded slowly at windows-startup.

1.40b2 works fine (esp. the change of drive letters ability is much appreciated) except for the tray icon which doesn't change at all (always locked), tried this on Win7 x64 and XP SP3.
A comment concerning 'switched meaning' of the tray icon, I suggest to switch back to locked=mounted - seems more logical but that's a subjective matter

flanco

Just found a bug: Changing the password does not update '.encfs6' file hence the new password does not work & the old one seems to be still valid.

Geronimo

re 1.4 final: seems that the issue flanco mentioned has been resolved, the icon hwoever still doesn't change [unless there is a setting responsible for this remaining in a config file from a previously installed version).

Robert

We changed the "unlock" icon in v1.4 and differences between unlocked and locked are not so huge anymore. Are you sure, that the icon stays in locked mode even if it shouldn't?

It would be great if you could post a screenshot with this behavior, e.g. with the open right-click context menu with drives mounted. Thanks!

--Robert

PS: You can expect the beta for v1.5 already next week which will have Windows 8 support.

Geronimo

I'm pretty sure that the icon doesn't change, unless the two states can only be differentiated by using a magnifier ... ;)

See : http://imgur.com/FkhVW (no drive mounted)

and

http://imgur.com/rWH02 (one drive mounted)

As I wrote, this is XP SP3. Same behaviour on Win7 x64

Robert

Actually it changed, but the difference is really small and hard to see on a grey background (as the lock itself is also grey). Here's how it looks on a darker background:

http://imgur.com/3lxPB

Maybe we should ship magnifiers with v1.4 ;)

Colin Bowen

In the original v1.4 Beta, this was included "Modified: Path length is restricted to 260 characters by default again. Long path support can be enabled in the Advanced Options". Is this still included in the Beta 2 version please?

Robert

Yes, this is also included in the Beta 2 and also in the Final v1.4.

Geronimo

Well. It's really hard to identify. Can I suggest to make the icon more easy to identify please in 1.5, think of netbooks etc, personally I think the old 'unlocked' status icon was very clear.

acc10x

Not pleased with the official 1.4 release. The icon has the same issue as the recent Mac release: Appears "unlocked" when mounted, and "locked" when unmounted. (How did this ever get past QA unnoticed??) Also looks like the ability to unmount Boxcryptor from the tray icon when in simple mode has been removed and you have to be in advanced mode. Again, user unfriendly, as well as an unnecessary modification/removal.

Love the program, but this is a serious backwards step. I thought the Mac icon thing was a blip, but it looks not to be the case.

[Edit:] I stand corrected on the unmount from simple mode option. I thought that was the case with previously version of BC, but after downgrading to 3.1.2 I don't see that as an option.

Robert

Hi,

Please read the changelog above:

---
* Modified: New Unlocked system tray icon and switched meaning (Locked -> No BoxCryptor Drive is mounted, Unlocked -> BoxCryptor Drive is mounted)
---

The new icon behavior is on purpose and not "accidentally". When a drive is mounted your files are actually unmounted and the files can be accessed in plaintext. It's more logical now and we had quite a few users asking for this change.

The simple mode never had the option to unmount the BoxCryptor Drive from the tray icon. There must be a misunderstanding. It always had: Open Drive/Mount Drive/Start Wizard (depending on the state), Preferences, About, Exit.

--Robert

Joe0815

HATE the new icon too! What a waste of money on its 'designer'!
One needs to know that the 'unlocked' icon looks different and still then one thinks every other time it's unlocked! How can one be so stupid to design such?

BTW: I enlarged the icon for 'closed' and it is CLEARLY open (black bar showing at the 'end' of the U (remember, it's a u-lock) and then 1 pixel row of backround color, then the lock itself!

Just my two cents...

P.S. WAN-Performance seems much better than 1.3.9.0, but it might also (or only) be our new internet connection...

P.P.S: See yourself here on green background: http://postimage.org/image/3msz1okkn/
RIDICULOUS!

Joe0815

@Robert: "The new icon behavior is on purpose and not "accidentally". When a drive is mounted your files are actually unmounted and the files can be accessed in plaintext."

You're trying to fool us, are you? You're testing if we pay attention and/or understand how your software works.

Because if NOT you wouldn't understand your software yourself and were even with that brilliant designer yourself!
BC provides a /DRIVELETTER/ once a drive is mounted. I know of NO other way to access the data.
So if the drive is NOT mounted: /HOW/ would we 'accidentially' access plaintext data? There is /NO/ drive letter anymore...

Robert, would you mind to start getting serious?!

Joe0815

@Robert:
I am not pulling myself up on your obvious (?? just noticing it right now whilst reviewing my post) mistake "When a drive is mounted your files are actually unmounted and the files can be accessed in plaintext."
Overread that, get 1 step back and see the mess you made and wrote.

Yours, Joe

Robert

Hi Joe,

Sorry for the typo in my previous post. Of course it should read "your files are actually decrypted" instead of "your files are actually unmounted".

As stated in the changelog, the behavior of the icon did change in v1.4: If BoxCryptor is running, but no drive is mounted, the icon is locked - because no files can be accessed in plaintext. If one or more drives are mounted, the icon is unlocked - because files can be accessed in plaintext.

I'm sorry if you were confused by this behavior change, but we had quite a few users asking for this behavior and we actually saw that it's more logical.

Best,
Robert

PS: We try to keep a friendly atmosphere here in the forums and it would be great if you would respect that. Thanks.

snaphat

Hi Robert,

Can you make the default behavior be not to remember passwords?

I may have a possible bug to report, but I'm not sure. I think that I keep telling boxcryptor to not remember the passwords for my drives but that it randomly does. The reason I'm not sure this is a bug is because I can't reproduce the behavior when I try (I tried the other day on my lab PC and today on my home PC). I just keep noticing that somehow I have boxcryptor set to save my passwords on different PCs when I thought I didn't.

Colin Bowen

Hi Robert and everyone else.

I'm testing this beta too, and I have noticed a problem relating to a feature brought in in the previous beta; protection against long path lengths. It leads to an observation, and a question.

It appears that when you get to the maximum path length, increasing the length of the file name returns and error and prevents you from doing so. However, increasing the folder name length is possible (up to a point) without producing a warning on the screen, but it does have the following effects:
1. If I right-click the plain-text folder, Click "Boxcryptor" in the context menu, and click "View encrypted folder", I can see the encrypted folder, and within it I can see the encrypted file.
2. If I right-click the encrypted folder, click "Dropbox" in the context menu, and select "Browse on Dropbox website", the folder on the website is empty.
3. If I go back to the plain-text folder in my Boxcryptor drive and open the folder, I can see the file but get the Boxcryptor error "Path is too long". If I try to open the file, I get an error that I assume is Windows saying "The filename or extension is too long".

So, when you increase the folder name, Boxcryptor still encrypts the folder name and the encrypted file is still within it, but the file is deleted from the Dropbox Website (and other computers sharing the folder) because the path length is too long. At least that's my understanding of it.

This gets even more confusing when you have two PC sharing the same folder, where the path lengths of the Dropbox folder differ too (in my case, I have Win7 and WinXP) but that's irrelevant to my testing above.

I don't understand how Boxcryptor encrypts the files, but I do know just enough about encryption to maybe jump to the wrong conclusion, but here goes...
Where the length of the file or folder name is related to the length of the encrypted name (in this case 1.2 to 1.5 times the length), doesn't that leak information that could make it easier to crack?

And now for a suggestion...
Couldn't the length of all the encrypted file names be made the same, and all the encrypted folder names be made the same, and the combined total being a maximum of 200, for example? There's something similar in my mind about user names and passwords being salted and hashed, and anything over a certain bit-length is discarded. As I implied, I'm an amateur when it comes to this, so a simple "It can't be done" will be enough to shut me up :-)

Sorry for the long post.

Robert

Hi Colin,

Regarding your first question: This is a more generic Windows problem and not solely related to BoxCryptor. Creating files with too long paths by renaming a parent folder is always possible in Windows. You can try that also in the normal Dropbox folder:

1) Create a file with a long path (e.g. 250 characters) within your Dropbox folder
2) Rename one of its parent folders to increase the name length (e.g. add 25 characters)
3) Check the Dropbox website and you will notice that the file disappeared.

The only solution for this problem would be to check every sub-folder and every file in every subfolder if the rename or move operation would create too long filenames. If you have thousands of subfolders and files, this could be a huge performance issue and also concurrency could be a problem (e.g. another program creates a new file in an already checked sub-folder while the check is running).

BoxCryptor is behaving like any other file system in this case - you are renaming a folder and the new path length of that folder is correct. Contents of the folder are not checked. This is really more a problem of the application performing the rename operation (e.g. Windows Explorer) which should apply additional checks.

Best,
Robert

PS: Christian will answer your second question.

Christian

Hi Colin,

Regarding your second question:

The relation of size between a plaintext filename and its encrypted couterpart isn't actually a problem. This situation occurs on pretty much every encryption system: You have to be able to encrypt data in every possible size. So, if you "stretch" the data to a fixed length n, what happens if someone tries to encrypt a file with the length n+1? That means, in practice you will allways leak information regarding the plaintext length to some degree.

The reason that passwords can be reduced to a fixed length is, that they don't have to be decrypted again. They are hashed - that means, you generate some kind of checksum out of them. To test a given password, you calculate the same hash, and compare both of them. But since you can't retreive the password back from a hashvalue (there might be several passwords with the same hashvalue), this isn't usable for encryption.

Having knowledge of the plaintext length, however, does not help in cracking the encryption. Without really digging into the math behind it, just have a look at the raw AES algorithm: AES encrypts its data blockwise - 128 bit plaintext to 128 bit ciphertext. In this case, you know exactly how long the plaintext is - none the less, you can't break AES with this knowledge alone :-) This task (cracking an AES-block) can be reduced to cracking a couple of encryption modi (e.g. CBC) with knowledge of length. That means, when you find a way to retreive the plaintext by knowing the size of it, you would have found a way to break AES. So, an attacker really isn't able to get any more out of it than the knowledge of the filename's length.

I hope I was able to help you!

Best regards,
Christian