miniLock

In 2015, Amnesty International recommended the program MiniLock to encrypt files and protect your privacy on-line. MiniLock uses your e-mail address and a long passphrase to generate a key (MiniLock ID) that is used to encrypt files. You provide your MiniLock ID to others so that they can encrypt to you, and you use their MiniLock ID to encrypt messages to them. A MiniLock ID is a 44-character alpha-numeric string that works as a public key for encryption. Using the same e-mail address and the exact same pass-phrase will generate the same MiniLock ID (key pair) each time. Note however that including even an extra space (say at the beginning or end of your e-mail address or passphrase) will generate a completely different MiniLockID. We like MiniLock, but note that it is only available as an add on for the Chrome Browser, which limits its usefulness as a general encryption program. Still the need for the Chrome browser isn’t an overwhelming problem since it is freely available world-wide.

miniLock lets you encrypt any file quickly and easily, and share it securely with any friend that has a miniLock ID.

Open miniLock and enter your email and passphrase. miniLock uses your passphrase to generate a miniLock ID. You can then send your miniLock ID to friends and they will be able to encrypt files and send them to you. You can send files to your friends once you have their miniLock IDs.

miniLock IDs are very small and easy to communicate. They fit inside a tweet, business card or text message. Entering your passphrase on any computer with miniLock installed will immediately give you the same miniLock ID.

miniLock allows you to also encrypt files for yourself to decrypt later. It can encrypt files to multiple recipients, and has other features such as anonymizing both the sender and recipients of an encrypted file.

The idea behind miniLock's design is that passphrase memorized by the user, along with their email address, can act as a complete, portable basis for a persistent public key identity and provide a full substitute for other key pair models, such as having the key pair stored on disk media (the PGP approach).

miniLock is audited, peer-reviewed software. It's developed using proven cryptographic standards and under the scrutiny of the open source cryptography community.

miniLock is available from the Chrome Web Store

MiniLock was designed by Nadim Kobeissi, the creator of Cryptocat, a chat program that we also like.