Re: encrypting or password protecting files in OpenOffice and also jpg files and sending them to MSWindows users.....

[Adam Stiles <adam@priceengines.co.uk>]

On Friday 27 Nov 2009, Michael Fothergill wrote:
> Dear Debian folks,
>
> I use Open Office.  It works OK for me most of the time.  It can save files
> as Microsoft Word documents.  I work with people who use MSWindows software
> all the time such as MSWord etc.  I want to send an encrypted or password
> protected file to them.
>
> If you produce a word processor document in MSWord apparently according
> them you just click on some menu item with encypt on it and it encrypts the
> document for you.  Whether it attaches a password to it as well or how the
> user at the other end decrypts it I don't know....

Password-protected Office and ZIP files are so trivial to crack, that you 
might just as well be sending them in the clear.

I'd use GnuPG to encrypt the e-mail message .....  unless I was sending it 
over a secure intranet with no outside world access  (mailserver behind NAT, 
on an unroutable address and with no ports -- especially not 25 and 110 -- 
forwarded to the outside world).  In which case, there's no need for 
encryption anyway.

-- 
AJS