[Stealth]

Accounting quite often deals with highly confidential files, which need to be backed up nightly.  in order to provide a more secure backup (should someone get hold of the backup tapes, or hard drives, etc.), i suggested they encrypt and compress all the files they use at night, and then backups are only taken of that one compressed (and encrypted) file.  would like something that's 64 or 128bit compatible encryption.  never really used the 'security' of winzip or winrar, so would those work?  if so: how, and if not, what could i use?

Thx

[Kamikaze]

One time pad!

[Stealth]

OK let me rephrase my question:

i'm looking for realistic, developed, and available software (free if possible) to encrypt and compress a file

[Kamikaze]

http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/features.html
http://www.bzip.org/

... though technically an OTP would be the only way to provide unbreakable encryption on your files.

[CP5670]

You could just try using NTFS's compression and encryption features directly from Windows. I've heard that the encryption actually works pretty well.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by CP5670
You could just try using NTFS's compression and encryption features directly from Windows. I've heard that the encryption actually works pretty well.

Main problems with that is that he can only use one of them at a time and that NTFS provides no protection for files sent over a network.