Lucifer is a
Lucifer is freeware. This means that you do not have anything to pay to use it. Its sources are also provided, so you can have a look at them and reuse some ideas in the code. The sources are distributed as an eMbedded Visual C++ Project and were developed with Microsoft eMbedded Tools.
This program is provided without any warranties. This means that I won't be responsible in any case of whatever happens if you use it. I also have no obligation to change, fix, upgrade or whatever Lucifer. This program is gracefully provided to who wants and need it, in any case I remain the author, with the right to do whatever I want with it.
Lucifer is an encryption / decryption software that allows you to keep files secure on your device. Indeed, on my Ipaq I did not find the "private" attribute that was provided by my Palm Pilot. So it was not really secure and convenient to store secret files (for example containing card numbers) in clear on the device. That's the reason why Lucifer was developed.
Lucifer basically provide 2 features:
The algorithm used is DES, based on David A. Barrett's (barrett%asgard@boulder.Colorado.EDU) implementation of Cipher 3.0. Indeed Lucifer is just a wrapper to embedded this program into a Windows CE user interface for Pocket PCs.
As a general overview, a file can be encrypted with a password (that you must remember after, of course). This will generate a .luc file containing the original data but not readable in clear. To read these data again, you then must ask Lucifer to decrypt them and provide the same password. The decryption can be invocated in two ways: either by launching the program and opening an encrypted file, either by clicking directly on an encrypted files. Because encrypted file have a special extension (.luc) and a special filetype and because this filetype is bound to the Lucifer program, Lucifer will be then automatically be launched with the file as an argument and will try to decrypt it.
To encrypt a file, you must first launch Lucifer, then click on the button representing a closed lock in the upper toolbar. A file requester will then pop up. You then specify the name of the file you want to encrypt and validate. The name of this file will be stored in the resulting encrypted file. So when you will decrypt it later, you may recover the data in clear, directly in a file with this name. Once you have specified the file to encrypt you will be asked for a password that you have to remember to be able to decrypt your data later. The password is asked twice for the sake of ensuring you did not mistake while entering it. So the two occurrences you enter must of course match. If no, then the encryption process will be aborted. This is just to make sure you did not misspelled your password. Once the encryption is done, you will be asked whether you want to remove the original file, that is the file you decided to encrypt. This may be more secure, hence avoiding to keep one version of your data in clear on your device. By default, the encrypted file has the original name concatenated with the .luc extension. If such a file already exists, you will be asked for another name or to confirm the erasure of the previously existing file.
To decrypt a file, either you directly click on a .luc file (that is a file with the .luc extension bound the the filetype handled by Lucifer). In this case, Lucifer will be automatically be launched in decryption mode with this file as an argument. Either you can launch manually Lucifer then click on the button representing an open lock in the upper toolbar, and then you will be asked for the name of the file you want to decrypt. By default the displayed files in the requester will be those with a .luc extension, that is files having the filetype bound to Lucifer. Once your file name is selected you will be asked for a password. This password is the one you used previously to encrypt the file. If you provide a wrong password, then your file will still be decrypted, but data you will get won't be those you originally encrypted. This means that you will get some unreadable garbage !!! There is no way to recover the password you used: if you forget it, you won't be able to decrypt your data ! The result of the decryption will be, by default, stored in a file having the same name than the file you originally encrypted. If a file with this name already exists, you will be asked for another name of to confirm the erasure of the already existing file. Then to finish if the decrypted has a special filetype (for example is a PocketWord file, a Pocket Excel file, and so on) you will be asked if you want to launch the default viewer associated with this file. This is especially convenient to read your data once you have decrypted them.
I will stay open to any suggestion, bug report, congratulation, fund donations ;-) So if you want to reach me, you can try my email address: fpessaux@cs.stevens-tech.edu.
I hope this little piece of software will be useful and you will enjoy it !... Cheers,
-- François