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On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 03:42:51PM +0000, Neil Winchurst wrote: > It seemed so simple to me. Change an already existing file by adding a > password. From now on when I click on that file to open it a small > window appears asking for the password. I type in the password and the > file opens and I can treat like any normal file. Without the password I > cannot access it. When you click on a file to open it, your computer looks at its extension (.odf, .mp3, .txt etc.) to decide which program to use to open it. If the name of the encrypted file wasn't different, the program (for example LibreOffice it it's an .odf file) wouldn't know how to handle the encrypted content. Of course, the encryption tool could give the file a new name, e.g. mydocument.odf.encrypted and then the decryption tool would show a window to enter your password upon clicking it. It could then open the file with the correct program (LibreOffice in this case). But this program doesn't know about the file being encrypted, so it might save temporary unencrypted copies on the system. These could be tidied up when closing the file, when the encryption program takes control, but what if you turn off the computer in the meantime? For some users, such scenarios might not matter, but for many others they do; hence no one would want to write an encryption tool like the one you describe (or so I would imagine), even though the request is entirely reasonable. However, apart from using an encrypted directory or partition, it's worth noting that several programs (including LibreOffice) allow you to encrypt files. In this case, the program itself knows the file is encrypted. Martijn.
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