Baia Mare, Romania - January 5, 1999 - Interscope launches a new edition of its security tool,
Interscope BlackBox. BlackBox is now a full security suite, smoothly integrated in the Windows shell.
It lets users protect their files by using encryption as well to delete files and folders safely (destroying beyond
possiblity to recovery) when necessary.
Even if basically it is a file encryption tool, BlackBox can also create single-file self-extracting archives
(which can even contain whole directory structures) suitable for Internet distribution, has many advanced features such as
exclusion lists, security sets and even a shredder that you can place on the desktop and drag sensitive files you want
to destroy over it. The appearance of encrypted files
and operation of BlackBox can be configured and fine tuned also.
Exclusion lists make possible that some files and/or folders be excluded from encryption (protected
from being accidentally encrypted) either based on their name, location or attributes.
The system folders and files in the root directory of the boot drive are excellent candidates for exclusion, since they are
vital for the operating of the PC.
Each user has its own security set,
which is essentially a list of sensitive files, possibly spread across drives and folders, and which can be locked and
unlocked at once. The status of the security set can be monitored in the system tray.
Besides the new features we added to this release, there are many things that were improved based on the feedback we got
from BlackBox users. A few of these enhancements are the possibility to decrypt multiple files in one pass, even if they were
encrypted using different passwords (if the decrypt password is invalid for some selected file, another password is asked for and then
a list of passwords is kept and all passwords in the list are tried before users are bothered for another one), the algorithm used to
display the Encrypt... and Decrypt... options in context menus was revised (allowing for recursive decryption of folders), the speed of
processing was improved (by implementing the encryption engine as a free-threaded COM component) and more.
BlackBox uses 56-bit DES (Data Encryption Standard) as the encryption engine, which is implemented
conforming to ANSI Standard X3.29. The DES algorithm has several operation modes
(ECB, CBC, OFB and CFB) and BlackBox uses the two that are most powerful: ECB (Electronic
CodeBook) and CBC (Cipher Block Chaining). Even though it is a pretty old and well-known symmetric
encryption algorithm, its simplicity and speed makes it unbeatable in fast file processing
while staying secure enough for everyday use. However, if you have very sensitive data, you
should look for more advanced (and for sure more computing power consuming, in other words
slower) solutions, such as RSA or PGP. The encryption engine is also available for licensing by itself.
We designed BlackBox to be as easy to use and user friendly as possible. All its features can be
accessed from more than one place (e.g. the Start Menu, the desktop, the Send To menu, the system
tray, file and folders context menus, etc.) and most tasks can be performed in several ways.
Its many advanced features, together with its exhaustive help, context-sensitive menus, ease of use, the FAQ page
at the BlackBox site and effective e-mail support makes Interscope BlackBox one of the best choices for a nice,
speedy and not ultimately affordable PC security program.
