How To Secure Ubuntu One Files By Encrypting Them Before Uploading

Ubuntu One is a free Canonical web service similar to Dropbox which comes pre-installed with the Ubuntu operating system. It allows users to store and sync files between computers and mobile devices (such as Android and iPhone) using it’s cloud storage service. Previously I explained the procedure to encrypt Dropbox in Ubuntu using ENCFS. This time I will tell you how to encrypt Ubuntu One files. 

Ubuntu One Encrypt/Decrypt is a script for encrypting and decrypting Ubuntu One data before uploading it. This script has been developed keeping in view the weak security provided by Ubuntu One, as it does not provide encryption for uploaded data from your Ubuntu computer to the cloud.

To get started, download the .sh file (download link given at the end of this post) and select file Properties from right-click menu.

Properties

Go to Permissions tab and select the option “Allow executing file as program”, in order to make the file executable.

Permissions

Encrypt

After that, double click on the .sh file and select Run. The script will prompt for an action, select Encrypt.

Encrypt

In the next step, you will be asked to keep a password to encrypt/decrypt data. This is not your account’s root password but a new password which you will have to assign to perform encryption and decryption tasks. Then it will encrypt it and copy the encrypted data to your Ubuntu One directory. If you’ve selected a directory then the script will gzip it before encrypting it, but if it’s a regular file it won’t.

Pass Phrase

Decrypt

To decrypt data, run the .sh file again and select Decrypt. The script will make sure you are not decrypting data from within the Ubuntu One folder, as that would cause the decrypted data to be immediately uploaded to the Ubuntu One servers. Then it will prompt for the password and decrypt the data as expected. If the decrypted data contains a gzip archive, it will automatically untar it as well.

Pass Phrase

Download Ubuntu One Encrypt/Decrypt

Alternative Download Link [Softpedia]