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by 13of40 2704 days ago
> It would be nice if there was a mainstream, built-in way to password-protect a file that you could share with someone else

This is going to sound really ghetto, but if you zip up some files, drag and drop the zip archive into a (modern) Word document, then pick File->Info->Protect Document->Encrypt With Password, you end up with a shareable file with decent encryption. IIRC, key generation is done with 500,000 rounds of SHA512 (which takes about 0.8 seconds on a contemporary CPU) and the encryption is 256-bit AES.
2 comments
techntoke 2704 days ago
Or just use GnuPG
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13of40 2704 days ago
Yep, there are a lot of ways you can do it. The point is, what are the chances my accountant is going to have GnuPG already installed on their laptop versus MS Word?
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tptacek 2704 days ago
None, is the answer. There is a none percent chance. And if you're going to get someone to install something, it's not going to be GPG. Without loss of generality this applies as well to lawyers, IT managers, development leads, chief security officers, cryptographers, and some former PGP developers.
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techntoke 2703 days ago
It's a simple install and even has a GUI app for right-click support.
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gus_massa 2704 days ago
Nice method! But it's surprisingly similar to https://xkcd.com/763/ .
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