BitClamp: Drag & Drop Encryption Coming for Mac
Here at MacApper there are more than a couple of independent software developers who willfully donate their time writing about their experiences working with Mac. Today one of our writers (and all around good guy) Daniel Greg from the UK, showed me an application he has been hard at work on and it really knocked my socks off. Daniel, who’s just 18, told me his security tool BitClamp would change the way people do encryption on Mac, and from what I have just seen I know he is right.
Encrypting and decrypting files with BitClamp is a seamless drag & drop procedure. Drop your file in the window, set a passphrase, and *poof* it’s encrypted. Daniel limited me to what I am able to say about BitClamp but he did allow me to tell you a few tidbits. Sorry no screenshots yet guys.
BitClamp is loosely based around some well known open sourced frameworks and is an implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Support is already included for the following forms of encryption:
- AES 128-bit
- Serpent 128-bit
- Blowfish 64-bit
Daniel promises that the list of supported encryption algorithms will grow as BitClamp matures, and that there are some really outstanding features coming. He says the utility will be ‘Encryption for the rest of us’ and from what I have seen I can tell you that the app is incredibly simple, fast, and already quite polished. I guarantee your little sister can use it.
I’m sworn to secrecy on any type of release date, other than - really soon. I have also been told the expected price point and it is much less than I would have guessed - not much more than the price of lunch.
Got your attention? Head over to Crimson Sky Software for the latest updates on a release of BitClamp. As usual you can expect a full-on review as soon as BitClamp is released here at MacApper.
How does it differ from jFileCrypt, which I find pretty easy as it is?
Hi there Waldo,
Just had a look at jFileCrypt. It differs in a number of major ways, I can tell you a few but Im not giving away everything yet
jFileCrypt is Java and therefore not native on the mac. BitClamp is.
BitClamp offers a tonne more features (again im not giving everything away) other than simple encrypting. None of these are offered by jFileCrypt.
Drag and Drop is much slicker than jFileCrypts opening system.
BitClamp can encrypt multiple files at once.
BitClamp obeys the Mac OS X User interface guidelines [ok thats a petty one ;-)]
But overall - BitClamp just feels mac, I thought jFileCrypt was ugly and felt very “java” as opposed to cocoa. Its performance was ok but not great and I was surprised to see text not fitting on certain windows etc.
I hope Ive done a little to answer the question. I cant give too much away but I can assure you that if you use jFileCrypt you would find BitClamp a welcome upgrade.
It will be freeware?
Ok, i see it will not. I’ll wait the lunch price
Hey guys,
Just to let you know that I will be interviewed at 9.30pm UK time on Mac live (http://www.maclive.biz/) show starts at 8. Hit the radio link to get put through.
In the old days there was a program called Fileguard (recently revived by Intego) which offered file and folder encryption (and more) at the Finder level. Is there any chance you’d be open to doing something similar (say, through a menu item)? It’d be really nice to be able to control-click a file or folder and encrypt it that way, too.
But I suppose you’ve already considered these options.
Thanks for listening
Due to the way it is written it would be hard to integrate BitClamp with the finder - however as you correctly guessed we have been considering these and are working on a solution.
However, this will not be in 1.0 but we are working hard to integrate BitClamp on that level as I can see it being so useful.
Stuffit has drag and drop encryption for mutliple files for quite some time now.
but I would welcome more features whatever they maybe
[...] the guys at MacApper a preview copy of my new software BitClamp. The response was pretty positive in that quick preview and I did my best to answer reader’s questions. Today Bitclamp is unveiled for all to use. [...]
Why not use encrypted disk images? That’s what I’m using, at least until Truecrypt becomes available. However, I’d also like something like Wildcrypt for Windows. Passphrases are great, but I like the added confidence of keyfiles.