If you're an OS X user and you store sensitive files on your iPod or flash drive, you're probably looking for ways to secure your data in case your portable storage device falls into the wrong hands. Some flash drives have proprietary data protection mechanisms, but they often don't work with OS X. More importantly, the iPod doesn't have such capability built-in. The best way mechanism I found was to create an encrypted disk image and use it as a virtual drive for your sensitive files. This disk image is safe to carry around because it protects your data with 128 bit AES encryption, which is uncrackable by all practical means.
Here's how you do it:
Open the terminal and type
cd /Volumes/[name of portable storage device]
hdiutil create -fs HFS+ -encryption -type SPARSE -volname "My Drive" securedrive
This creates a new disk image on your portable storage device called securedrive.sparseimage. You can mount the disk image by executing "hdiutil mount securedrive.sparseimage" or by double clicking on the disk image in Finder. This will show the virtual drive in Finder as volume "My Drive" as well as in the /Volumes directory.
You can copy or drag and drop your files into the newly mounted virtual drive and your data will be safe. Just don't forget to cleanly eject (unmount) the virtual drive (using the Finder eject button or by executing 'hdiutil unmount "My Drive"'), as well as you portable storage device, before you physically disconnect the portable storage device from your computer.
Keep in mind is that when you delete files from the virtual drive, the disk image doesn't shrink automatically and the physical space taken by the files remains unavailable. To reclaim this space, unmount the virtual drive and type
cd /Volumes/[name of portable storage device]
hdiutil compact securedrive.sparseimage
That'll give you those precious bytes back.
No comments:
Post a Comment