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Having a problem with Kremlin and don’t know what to do? Just curious?
The following are some of the most frequently asked questions about Kremlin.
I'm lost! How do I encrypt, decrypt,
wipe, and/or AutoCrypt files?
There are several ways to encrypt a file in Kremlin. The easiest is
to right-click on a file or folder and choose Kremlin Encrypt. You can
also drag your files and folders to the Kremlin Encrypt icon on the desktop.
You should enter your password and then choose Ok. Kremlin will then encrypt
your files and produce an encrypted .kgb file on the desktop. Unless you
checked the "Delete source file(s)" button when encrypting,
your original files will still be in their original location. To get rid
of these files, select them, right-click, and choose Kremlin Secure Delete,
or drag them to the Kremlin Secure Recycle Bin icon on the desktop.
To decrypt your files, just double-click on the encrypted .kgb file. Enter
your password and choose Ok. Kremlin will then decrypt the encrypted .kgb
archive and restore your original files. Any file or directory structure
will also be preserved. If you did not check the "Delete source file"
button when decrypting, you can now delete the encrypted .kgb file.
Kremlin includes an AutoCrypt feature that automatically encrypts your
files when you log off, and automatically decrypts them when you log back
on. This is useful if you always encrypt and decrypt specific files or
folders. A good candidate for automatic encryption and decryption is your
documents folder (generally "C:\My Documents" or "C:\Documents
and Settings\[user name]\My Documents\"). To add this to the
AutoCrypt list, double-click on the lock icon on the taskbar (generally
the bottom right hand of the screen, near your clock), and choose the
AutoCrypt tab. Then click Add and add the file or folder you wish to be
automatically encrypted.
I can't remember my password.
Is there any way to get it back? Or can anyone else "hack" my
password?
Absolutely not. The encryption used in Kremlin is extremely secure,
and it would require several months of processing by several thousand
computers to break even the least secure algorithm (NewDES). Stronger
algorithms like Blowfish, RC4, CAST, and IDEA would take over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000
years to break! To get somewhat technical, Kremlin uses SHA1 to combine
the use password and a 64 bit salt value, producing a 160-bit hash value
which is used as input into the various encryption algorithms. CBC encryption
mode (for block algorithms only) is enabled by default. Data compression
is also enabled by default.
To the absolute best of our knowledge, there is no way KremlinEncrypt.com
(or anyone else) can recover your encrypted message. Note that we have
no idea if the US government or any other organization has a top-secret
encryption-breaking machine, but because Kremlin uses the most advanced
and secure technology in the encryption field, it will be one of the last
encryption programs to be broken by this "encryption-breaking machine".
How can I be sure you're not lying to me and making false claims about
your software?
First, you have our word that we are being truthful. But you don't have
to rely only on our word; Kremlin has been reviewed by several people,
including a security expert, a hacker, and a professional database programmer.
We gave them the source code (the C programming code used to create Kremlin)
and let them verify that it works (and try to find weaknesses). The hacker,
Casimir has come up with "cracks" for several popular encryption
programs, including "Crypt-o-text" and "Encrypt-It".
These cracks allow anyone to recover the contents of an encrypted archive.
When Mach5 Software heard that he cracked Crypt-o-text and Encrypt-It,
we contacted Casimir and provided him with the source code to Kremlin
for analysis; But he didn't crack Kremlin or find any weakness; he recently
e-mailed Mach5 Software and admitted defeat, saying "OK, you won.
I surrender!". And Kremlin hasn't just been reviewed by hackers.
The Kremlin source code has been reviewed by several security professionals,
including Chris Hall and Alexander Pukall. Chris Hall is an employee of
Bruce Schneier's Counterpane Systems (Bruce Schneier wrote Applied Cryptography,
which is considered to be the encryption bible). Hall has discovered several
security flaws in the X-Windows operating system, helped to break the
Cellular message encryption algorithm, and contributed to numerous papers
on cryptographic algorithms and protocols. Pukall professionally creates
encrypted database solutions. Both have pronounced Kremlin secure. And
if you want, you can review the Kremlin source code yourself (just e-mail
us).
Why do I get an error "Your
system is running low on virtual memory…" when Kremlin wipes my physical
and virtual memory?
Kremlin wipes your computer’s physical and virtual memory by allocating
all available memory and then writing data to the allocated memory. This
error is, therefore, expected. It is not harmful; just click Ok when it
appears.
I just ran the Kremlin Sentry
or Kremlin Wipe, and now I don’t have any more disk space. How do I get
my disk space back?
Kremlin wipes your computer’s hard drives by creating a very large file
in the root directory of the specified drive. If Kremlin was interrupted
abruptly in the middle of wiping, or was not able to delete this file,
then it may still exist on the root directory and may therefore still
occupy space. To reclaim this space, navigate to the root directory of
the hard drive where you have observed the disk space loss and delete
a file kre****.tmp, where a ‘*’ is any valid filename character.
I have configured the AutoCrypt feature
to automatically encrypt some of my files or directories. Now those directories
are gone! What happened?
AutoCrypt automatically encrypts your sensitive files or directories
when you log off, securely deleting them if the encryption process was
successful. When you log back on, AutoCrypt automatically decrypts these
directories. If you have clicked Cancel when prompted to enter the decryption
password, you can log off and log back on – AutoCrypt will ask you for
a password again. If AutoCrypt has become confused and is no longer asking
for your decryption password, you can manually decrypt the AutoCrypt file.
The AutoCrypt file is stored in the C:\ directory, and is in the following
format: kre****.kgb, where a ‘*’ is any valid filename character. To decrypt
this file, double-click on it.
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