Change encryption password phrase

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Change encryption password phrase

Postby Shaipetit on Wed Jan 31, 2018 8:39 pm

In case encryption password phrase needs to be changed, is it possible?

I've tried changing the encryption password phrase in Edit profile... - Zip / Encryption - Encryption and running left to right Exact mirror mode Profile (local drives on the same PC). It resulted in all the folders and files encrypted with the old password phrase to be completely ignored by Profile and a new full copying of all the content (all folders and files) from the source (left) was started.

It would be handy if Syncovery could decrypt the encrypted destination content with an old password phrase and recrypt the destination content with a chosen new password phrase on the destination side (right) without recopying everything from the source (left) from scratch.
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby superflexible on Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:07 pm

Yes but unfortunately that's not possible. All the traffic would have to go through your machine anyway. Re-uploading will be much faster than downloading and uploading.

When such a change becomes necessary, I recommend backing up to a new destination folder and eventuelly deleting the old one.
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby Shaipetit on Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:29 am

All the traffic would have to go through your machine anyway. Re-uploading will be much faster than downloading and uploading.


This would only be the case for the Internet destinations that can't run Syncovery or Syncovery Remote Service.

However, for local drives on the same PC running Syncovery or remote destinations that can run Syncovery or Syncovery Remote Service, decryption with an old password and re-encryption with a new password would take place on that very same machine without any need to download and re-upload any data.

I wonder whether it would be possible to implement such feature that allows changing the encryption password phrase for destinations located on local drives (internal and external drives) and remote destinations that can run Syncovery or Syncovery Remote Service? At least, it could be available for local drives on the same PC running Syncovery.

Obviously, such feature wouldn't be available for destinations that can't run Syncovery or Syncovery Remote Service, e.g. cloud based ones.
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby superflexible on Sat Feb 10, 2018 9:25 am

To be frank, it is unlikely to be implemented, as there are more pressing issues and feature requests.
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby Shaipetit on Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:12 pm

Currently the best way to decrypt is to create a profile from uses the "Move Files to Destination" mode and move from right to left. The folder on the left side can be another local folder on the same volume.

The encryption settings must be the same as in the job that did the encryption.

Then the files will be decrypted and moved to the left side folder. Files which are still unencrypted will also be moved.


Provided destination side can run Syncovery client, this method can be used not only for decrypting filenames, foldernames and .zip or .sz archives, but also for changing encryption password phrase.
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby spagnola on Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:12 am

question
why would you be changing the password? AN, how frequently?

having been using syncovery, with encryption/zip for a while, i just create a 30+ character password, save it in KeePass (my password manager program), and I've created different passwords for different profiles, but once established, i leave well enough alone.

and if there is the rare occasion that i have to change it, then i just resign myself to re-upload everything

anyway, just curious as to the methodology that requires it to be changed
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Re: Change encryption password phrase

Postby Shaipetit on Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:02 pm

question
why would you be changing the password? AN, how frequently?


There was only a one single case when I've inappropriately used a very weak password and therefore wanted to change it into a stronger one.

I had around 10 TB of data encrypted with a weak password that was put on the file server by attaching the backup drives locally to the server at first and then all the further updates were done using a slow Internet connection. Due to slow, low bandwidth Internet connection I could't just reupload 10 TB of data from scratch, therefore wondered that it would be handy if Syncovery could change encryption password without the need to reupload everything.

I agree that such cases happen rarely, therefore it doesn't make sense investing time in developing such features in Syncovery. Besides, a workaround exists, which was posted in my post above.
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