Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Steganos Privacy Suite 2008
Privacy and data security are essential considerations for all computer users. Ian Waugh sees if Steganos will protect his privacy...
| Product | Steganos Privacy Suite 2008 |
|---|---|
| Company | Steganos |
| Web | www.steganos.com |
| Price | $79.95 |
| We like | Very effective, powerful and easy to use |
| We don't like | There's not much it can't do to keep your data safe! |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements | Windows XP/Vista |
If you're not concerned about privacy and security you jolly well should be! It's not just about running a firewall, anti-virus software and scanning for spyware – it's about not allowing your data to fall into the wrong hands – whether it be a thief, a hacker, the government, or even your boss or co-worker. It's about keeping your data private.
There's a range of data you need to consider – files on your hard disk, email correspondence, contacts, photos and pictures, passwords, and making sure deleted files can't be resurrected.
Steganos Privacy Suite 2008 has nine functions to help protect your data. The Safe is an encrypted area of your hard drive that appears as another hard disk with a disk letter when you open it and vanishes when you close it. It can be up to 512Gb in size, depending on the disk's capacity.
Access to the Safe requires a password, of course, and the program can help you generate a good password and tell you how safe it is, or you can use a sequence of pictures using PicPass. In addition you can save your password to a mobile device such as an iPod or PDA.
Data is automatically encrypted when saved to the Safe drive. When closed, the drive appears as a file on your hard disk.
Carry it forward...
The Portable Safe, as you can probably guess, enables you to set up a similar Safe on portable media such as a USB stick or removable drive. You can even burn the data to CD or DVD.
Likewise, the File Manager allows you to encrypt files and folders. However, you can not only encrypt them but hide them as well. Files are hidden within a Carrier file such as an image or sound file so anyone simply looking at the contents of your drive will not see any potentially 'suspicious' files. Very clever.
Private Favourites lets you make a list of Favourites for your browser that are encrypted.
Perhaps of wider interest is the ability to send encrypted emails. There are two ways to do this. With the first method, the program opens a text window where you type your message. You can add attachments, too. You then click on the 'Send encrypted' button, enter a password and away it goes.
Your email system needs to be set up to allow this. It didn't automatically work with my main, admittedly-esoteric, client but it should work with Outlook and Thunderbird. If it doesn't work with your email client, you can save the message to disk and send it as an attachment. The recipient has only to open the attachment and enter the password. They don't need any extra software.
Don't pass it on!
With all these encryption options, not to mention the passwords you need for various web sites – I currently need passwords for over 70 sites and applications! – it's useful to be able to store them safely. Password Manager is a clever utility that stores all your passwords so you only have to remember one.
Furthermore, when you log onto a password-protected site with internet Explorer or Firefox, it will automatically fill in the details. On top of that, as mentioned earlier, it can generate very secure passwords for you.
The AntiTheft function might just help retrieve your laptop – or even a desktop - if it's stolen. After installation, it periodically sends messages to the Steganos server and the computer's IP address is recorded. If the computer is stolen, the authorities may be able to track the location of the device through the ISP. Ok, maybe of limited use if it ends up in Nigeria but certainly worth using nonetheless.
The Internet Trace Destructor can delete your browsing history but, much more than that, it can remove all manner of data such as Internet Explorer history, temporary files and swap files. It also lets you the control data that might be sent to Microsoft via the Media Player and error logs.
One of the Really Good Things about the Internet Trace Destructor is that it gives you full control over what is removed. In particular, you can select which cookies to keep which is invaluable when you want to get rid of the dross but keep cookies for sites you visit regularly.
Also, it doesn't automatically remove all the history of recently used documents and programs, or history from Internet Explorer as some 'clean up' programs do, so you can keep the information you want and get rid of information you don't want. There are also over two dozen other selection options here, too.
Finally, There's a Shredder function that performs industrial strength deletion either to files such as word and PDF documents, or to all the free space on your hard drive.
It has three levels of deletion. In the first, data is overwritten just once. In the second data is overwritten three times in compliance with the US Department of Defense DoD 5220.22-M/NISPOM 8-306 technology. The third method, the Guttmann method, overwrites data 35 times and complies with the security requirements of the NSA although it can take a very long time.
Conclusion
Steganos Privacy Suite 2008 has all the functions you need to keep your data private. It's a sophisticated piece of software that gives you a great deal of control and it's easy to use. If you're serious about protecting your privacy and data – and you should be! – it should be top of your shopping list.
Download a trial version of Steganos Privacy Suite 2008 here.
