Just FYI - I used Cryptkeeper to encrypt a folder containing over 2 GigaBytes of files (that's alot of files), and it seemed to work OK, it took a little while to encrypt all those files. BUT, when I decrypted the folder, it only took a few seconds to decrypt all the files. SAY WHAT?! Does anyone have any idea what happened - it doesn't make any sense to me. It's as if the original unencrypted files were saved somewhere and then when I decrypted the folder, Cryptkeeper didn't actually decrypt the folder but instead just made those original files reappear.
1 Answer
I don't see sufficient information on the cryptkeeper website specifically, but I think the case is that when cryptkeeper is decrypting the folder, it in fact does not decrypt everything. It is only when you are actually opening a file, particularly a large one, that a great deal of data is decrypted, and where the slowdown may occur. The encryption process took longer because it was the entire folder and contents that were being decrypted. It appears that cryptkeeper uses EncFS, a project which you can learn more about the workings of here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncFS
