encrypting a compressed file?

patcheezy · 06-10-2009, 05:51 PM

Is it possible to encrypt a compressed file?

Is there any downside of encrypting a compressed file such as data integrity?

Aix 5.3

I was able to encrypt a compressed file using ccrypt; however, after decrypting the file I was not able to uncompress the file. I should mention that i also tried openssl but the file is 13gb and openssl would error basically stating that the file is to big. Any help is greatly appreciated.

JulianTosh · 06-11-2009, 12:54 AM

It is recommended that you compress a file before encrypting it. It is very difficult to compress an encrypted file because the encrypting process "randomizes" the data.

You shouldnt have any data integrity errors by encrypted a compressed file. Have you tried 'gpg -c' to encrypt? I usually use that when I need to encrypt a file.