Hello, my new app for creating encrypted virtual disk

[renzhi]

Hi,

I'd like to introduce myself and my new app for creating encrypted virtual disk on Android, called Renzhi Safe. You should be able to find on the Android Market.

When I got my Android phone a few months ago, I was looking for an app that would allow me to manage encrypted virtual disks. I couldn't find any, although there are tons of apps for managing passwords, credit card information, and apps for encrypting/decrypting individual files, but that's not what I wanted. I want to create encrypted virtual disk, mount it like a folder, and do whatever I want with it. So I wrote my own. After using it for a while, I decided to rewrite the UI and publish it. Maybe other people have the same needs as I do.

You can reach me for any question on my personal site, renzhi.ca. You can find more information there too, including user's guide, release notes, etc.

Best,

 

[alostpacket]

Welcome to the forums Sounds very cool. What encryption did you use?

 

[Steven58]

Welcome to Android Forums! Glad you signed up!

 

[renzhi]

Hi,

Default encryption algorithm is AES, with 256 bit key size. Hope it will be useful to other people too.

 

[Watchinufrap]

Sounds like an interesting program,
Would you care to explain a little about the applications of the software for those of us who do not know exactly what they are for?

 

[Bob Cat]

Welcome to Android Forums! Looks interesting.

 

[renzhi]

Thanks all.

Renzhi Safe is an encrypted virtual safe (or disk, or volume) based on a container. You can create a container (say, 100MB), Renzhi Safe will handle all the creation, formatting, encryption/decryption, filesystem, etc. Then you can mount it like as if it is a disk on to a specific folder (a mount point).

When it is mounted (with the right password), it works just like any other folder on your SD card. You can create/copy/move files in and out, create folders/sub-folders, etc. You can view/edit your files directly using any other apps. You can put anything in there, pictures, documents, video, etc, not just passwords and credit card information. Encryption is on-the-fly, transparently. You won't even notice.

Once you are done, you can close it, the mount point looks empty, your safe container is just an opaque encrypted big files.

Internally, the safe contains its own filesystem, just like any disk.

For users, to create a safe, all you have to do is to specify a name, the size you want (e.g. 100MB), the mount point (where you want to access it when it is open), and the password. Renzhi Safe will handle all the complex things for you, including creating the container, formatting filesystem, handle encryption/decryption, hook into the kernel and the underlying Linux filesystem, attach to loop device, handle device mapping, etc, etc.

I have an app announcement on the other forum, but was thinking I should introduce myself first

There are a lot more functionalities that I'm working on, such as backup/restore (allowing you to backup your safe in case your phone goes "caput"), remote container (think in the cloud, e.g. have your safe hosted on Dropbox and mount it locally on your phone), integrate with key management (such PGP), shortcut to immediately close all your safes (e.g. shake your phone in case of emergency), etc.

These are all the functionalities that I want to use on a daily basis myself, so I hope it is as useful to others. People have asked about ad-supported free version, but I don't like ads, it's annoying, I pay for my apps if I think they are useful, so I don't think there will be one for this

You can contact me directly from my site if you have specific questions.

 

[renzhi]

I'm not sure how people use their mobile phone, for me, it's like a small computer. I have a lot of sensitive information on it, including vpn keys to my servers, ssh keys to specific server, list of accounts and passwords, scripts to run specific commands in case of server emergency, resume, family pictures, bank information, credit card information, etc.

None of the apps on the market allows me to manage all these information securely and easily. So I wrote my own. Eventually, I'd like all my messages, emails, etc, to be stored in my safe too. That will be for a future releases

 

[janicko222]

I do not understand why does this program needs full internet access... it looks quite suspicious...

 

[renzhi]

It's not that suspicious at all, if you look a little bit more

The internet access permission is not used currently at all. The intention of that permission was for a remote encrypted safe container, which is described in my roadmap. This is to have a safe container hosted on a remote server, e.g. ssh server, ftp server, dropbox, etc, and mount it locally as if it is a local safe container.

This feature was intended to be in the first release, but was pushed to later because it would be a really nasty support headache for me because of the (or lack of) modules in the Android kernel on the majority of devices right now. I built my own ROM and that works fine, but most ROMs do not have the proper support, therefore, the remote container feature was pulled, but the internet access permission was left there.

It's good to be suspicious, but if you care to look deeper, you'd see that the current version does not do any work involving online access.

Hope to have clarified on that.

 

[piggsl]

Hi,

sounds promising. Please keep us updated