Encrypt cryptocurrency credentials using 7-zip
I'm a big fan of 7-zip for a long time.
7-zip is a free and open-source file archiver which also supporting AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats.
The AES-256 algorithm uses cipher key with length of 256 bits. To create that key 7-Zip uses derivation function based on SHA-256 hash algorithm. A key derivation function produces a derived key from text password defined by user. For increasing the cost of exhaustive search for passwords 7-Zip uses big number of iterations to produce cipher key from text password.
We will try to make use of this strong and free encryption feature to protect our vital cryptocurrency information.
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
7-zip version: 7-Zip 17.01 beta (2017-08-28) for Windows
The walk-through
I store all my wallets under a directory with simple architecture like this. We will use the STEEM wallet as example for this tutorial.
Inside of the STEEM folder there are two files, the portable Vessel wallet for Steem and a plain text file that stores all the private keys for Steem including Owner key, Active key, and Post key.
One must never store sensitive data like such digitally in plain text. And we are going to encrypt this text file using 7-zip.
Download latest version of 7-zip from the official site.
After installation, right click on the text file. 7-zip -> Add to archive.
You can either choose 7z or zip format in the Archive format. Make sure the encryption algorithm is set to AES-256, this should be the only option if you are using the latest version of 7-zip. Lastly, create a strong password which is very important to increase the difficulty when someone trying to crack the encryption. The stronger the password the stronger your encryption is.
Press OK to start the archiving.
Now you will have an encrypted archive in 7z format.
Open it up and to make sure you see the + sign under the Encrypted column. Unlock the file to check if everything is OK before next step.
Permanently delete the plain text file by Shift + Del keys. Make sure no copy of the text file should be existing in any place including the recycle bin.
Remember all the sensitive credentials in digital form should always be encrypted.
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors
Thank you for the contribution. It has been approved.
PS: although your tutorial is quite short, I do think it is a useful, clever and non-techie way to protect passwords, many steemians could use! Also, the original 7Z-repo is not on GitHub, but I checked the fork you added. You cannot help it 7Z is not on GitHub and that currently Utopian only has GitHub repo sync functionality. Therefore, I have approved this contribution.
@scipio
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[utopian-moderator]
Thanks for your understanding. 7-zip has been one of my favorite open-source projects but too bad it is not hosted in GitHub. I truly appreciate your flexibility in this matter by putting the value of contribution beyond the rules. Also I'm hoping more moderators could be as opened as you to serve the "contribution-first" philosophy.
Utopian definitely should sync with more open-source repo as there are so many awesome projects just aren't hosted on GitHub!
true, but we are working on that and some other issues to be solved! (And believe me, getting this post of yours approved took some discussion between me and other mods, I fought hard for you, trust me...)
I'm truly flattered and you gotta believe me too that I'm inspired by your effort man.
I know the rules well and it won't surprise me if this post got rejected. There are several more tricks I would like to share with this tool and some other open source project that are not hosted natively on GitHub.
Approve or not, the readers would still be benefited from the useful tricks. But nothing feels better than getting an approval for sure, haha!
我也一直在用这个软件，非常棒！
识货!
嗯嗯，你有没有什么离线播放器推荐一个？不是暴风影音什么那种，就离线的，播放本地文件的，干净的，推荐一个，你也可以写一篇文章来推荐，我期待中！
绝对有，最近在用 Daum PotPlayer，韩国出品的，我觉得甚至比 VLC 好。哈哈国内的都是各种广告吧。
哈喽！感谢你对 @cnbuddy 的喜爱！很开心我的成长之路有你相伴。让我们携手共创 cn 区美好的明天！欢迎关注我们的大股东 @skenan，并注册使用由其开发的 CNsteem.com。如果不想收到留言，请回复“取消”。
Hey @fr3eze I am @utopian-io. I have just upvoted you!
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