

Safe – EncFS-compatible encrypted filesystem for Windows and Mac - aston
http://www.getsafe.org/about

======
MichaelGG
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7588369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7588369)

tptacek: " Safe is a wrapper around EncFS, which (a) potentially leaks a lot
of metadata and (b) is a weird combination of CBC and CFB. I'd feel better
about Truecrypt. reply "

Followed by a bit of discussion and a link to an apparently unfavourable
audit.

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miles
Here's the announcement[1] from a few days ago, linked from Safe's Twitter
feed[2]:

Wanted to announce the release of my native Windows/MacOSX port of EncFS. It's
called Safe, it's free and you can get it here:
[http://www.getsafe.org/](http://www.getsafe.org/)

Safe forms an ecosystem with similar tools like TrueCrypt. It's not for
hardcore cryptographic applications, you can't choose specific ciphers and it
makes no effort to ensure plausible deniability.

Safe's main goal is to make file system encryption easy to use and accessible
to more people. It's for every day encryption i.e. a simple way to ensure
reasonably private stuff is actually stored privately. Peace of mind if your
laptop or external hard gets stolen, or someone hacks into your backup
service. As a tool, it empowers more people to make their own cryptography
decisions instead of having to rely on and trust proprietary solutions.

Safe isn't without limitations. Think of it like the physical safe you keep in
your home: burglars will have a hard time cracking it but given enough
resources it's not strictly impenetrable. If you need a steel alloy vault,
TrueCrypt might be closer to what you're looking for but it's not without its
own set of limitations as well.

Personally I store all my tax, legal, and medical documents in Safe. That's
just me, Safe is GPL and comes with no warranty :)

[1] [http://pastebin.com/xxQhEv0q](http://pastebin.com/xxQhEv0q)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/safe_app/statuses/457281727761620992](https://twitter.com/safe_app/statuses/457281727761620992)

~~~
MichaelGG
I don't get it, and the GetSafe page doesn't explain this: Why would I use
this instead of TrueCrypt? Oddly the page takes the time to explain how it
doesn't use FUSE but uses WebDAV, yet doesn't tell me why I'd want something
that leaks metadata, requires disabling hibernation, and provides less
security, but still requires a password.

Also just thinking out loud, but if the files are accessed over an HTTP port
on localhost, then there's the risk a client may cache files to an unencrypted
place. Using full disk encryption eliminates all these kinds of risks and
isn't any harder (it's just a password, like safe).

~~~
rian
Hi! Author of Safe here.

This is explained here:
[http://www.getsafe.org/about#howissafedifferentfromtruecrypt](http://www.getsafe.org/about#howissafedifferentfromtruecrypt).
Here is a quick summary:

1\. You can use your existing EncFS encrypted data on Mac/Windows.

2\. 1:1 File encryption is much faster on network storage you don't control,
like NFS, SMB, Drobo, Space Monkey, Dropbox, Google Drive. Most of their
drivers/protocols are file-based. TrueCrypt is block-based, i.e. all data is
stored as a single potentially giant file. This affects the performance of
algorithms focused on caching and deduplication.

3\. I designed Safe to be much easier than TrueCrypt to use. Try making a new
encrypted disk with TrueCrypt, then do the same process with Safe and you'll
see what I mean. TrueCrypt is very intimidating to set up for people who don't
intimately understand how cryptography works. Safe just chooses the most
secure defaults.

As for your second concern about caching. I can guarantee that no data is
cached to the local disk unencrypted when using Safe. Don't just take my word
for it, verify yourself. See
[http://www.getsafe.org/about#system_changes_more_info](http://www.getsafe.org/about#system_changes_more_info)

Safe is not a competitor to TrueCrypt. They are different tools for different
situations. I use both depending on the nature of the data I'm keeping
private. Safe is another tool in this ecosystem and the main goal is to help
more people take control of how their data is stored and transmitted and
hopefully bootstrap mainstream digital privacy awareness.

~~~
mhurron
I was just looking for something like this, and this looked great, until ...

What system changes does Safe make at installation?

Enable pagefile/swap encryption Disabling hibernate mode

I don't need or want this. I want my desktop to hibernate and I don't need the
swap file encryption. My use case is JUST encrypting files as they sit on a
cloud storage provider. If I wanted that type of protection I'd already be
using full disk encryption on my desktop.

Are the system changes optional or do they have to be enabled to use Safe?

~~~
rian
Currently yes, but I've gotten a lot of the same feedback and I'll make it
optional in the next release (within the week :)

Follow us on Twitter
([http://twitter.com/safe_app](http://twitter.com/safe_app)) or GitHub
([http://github.com/safeapp/safe](http://github.com/safeapp/safe)) to be
notified when it happens.

(If you can't wait, you can always edit the source and produce your own build.
Those system changes aren't necessary for Safe to function.)

~~~
mhurron
Well with those changes this might be exactly what I needed.

------
sweis
Why does Safe use the Botan crypto library?

Botan has a single contributor who says "[Botan] has never undergone an
impartial third-party security review, and thus it is entirely
possible/probable that a number of exploitable flaws remain in the source."

I don't know of any other project that depends on it.

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FiloSottile
I'd like to link to a audit of EncFS, the system that Safe is a wrapper for:
[https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm](https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm)

It highlights in my opinion a old and not rigorous implementation and design.

I'd not feel safe using it even if the developers of Safe did a great job
choosing defaults.

~~~
mhurron
It all depends on what you need. EncFS appears to be enough for what I need it
for, encrypting files that I want to be a little more private than not at all
on cloud storage. I personally wouldn't put sensitive information through it,
but then again, I wouldn't put my sensitive information on a cloud provider
either.

On top of that, what other per-file cross platform encryption options are
there?

~~~
dteoh
> On top of that, what other per-file cross platform encryption options are
> there?

Boxcryptor is an option, but it is not open source.

~~~
mhurron
Boxcryptor 2 doesn't have a Linux client and Boxcryptor Classic was just
mostly EncFS so its Linux support was the same as Safe here.

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suthakamal
Not sure why Safe forcibly disables hibernation on Mac's with FileVault2: it
encrypts the hibernated (is that a word) version of memory stored to disk.

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kakashi19
i guess this won't work on iphone right?

~~~
robfreudenreich
You should be able to use it with any mobile encryption app which is
compatible to EncFS, e.g. Boxcryptor Classic on Android and iOS (more info:
[https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/classic](https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/classic))

