Looking for simple wrapper for symmetric key file encryption

[Mr. Clif]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the comments. Yes the threat model is mostly the worry of 
having old temp files or even the original cleartext files left behind 
on the HD, or even worse having them backed up. ;-) At the very least I 
want something that tries to protect me from stupid mistakes. Yep the 
RAM disk idea was part of the solution I'm heading towards.

So do you or does anyone know of a nice front end that helps with that? 
An example of behavior that doesn't seem helpful is that when I use GPA 
to decrypt a file it defaults to saving it on the HD. I'm not trying to 
knock GPA here but wouldn't it be better to display the contents in a 
window? Well I realize that might be just what I want, and others have 
use cases that it works fine for. ;-)

     Clif

On 01/19/2014 01:23 PM, Doug Barton wrote:
> On 01/19/2014 08:56 AM, Mr. Clif wrote:
>> So I'm trying to get a sense from the users here if they feel that the
>> process of using gpg for symmetric encryption is safe enough, and they
>> are not worried about leaving clear text behind.
>
> I think you're misunderstanding a few things. First, the problem of 
> the plain text file is not exclusive to symmetric encryption. In fact 
> there is no difference between that, and the plain text file that's 
> left behind after public key encryption.
>
> Second, you haven't defined your threat model. You have given us a 
> vague sense of wanting to have a "secure" system, but you haven't said 
> what you're trying to secure it against. Thus it's hard to respond 
> intelligently to your query.
>
> That said, I would suggest that you consider using a RAM disk to do 
> your work on. It can be created to do the work, then deleted after 
> you're done, with no risk of leaving a file behind on disk. Of course 
> you'd want to make sure your RAM disk was not swap-backed.
>
> hope this helps,
>
> Doug
>