If you enjoy the secrecy that e-mail encryption offers, you might be considering encrypting your personal documents and folders on a shared computer.
There are specialized software utilities this.
To encrypt files and folders, you can try a tool called DESlock+ 3.2.4. It is free for personal use; the package with two USB drives costs US$185. One USB drive is used for backing up the key, while the other is used as a USB token key. Simply right-click on the file or folder and choose the "Encrypt" option.

To decrypt the file or folder, you need to insert the USB token key. Download a free copy from . FileLock is easier to use and does not require USB token keys. This utility lets you drag and drop files or folders into a secure area of the hard disk. You can also backup encrypted folders in the secure area.
Laptop users might want to try 13 Basic Security. It uses a USB token key and a 128-bit encryption algorithm. You need to create "virtual vaults" or reserved areas on your laptop hard disk. On inserting the USB token, you will be asked to specify the size of each virtual vault [up to 30 GB) and the Windows file system [FAT, FA132, or NTFSJ. You can then simply drag and drop files and folders into a virtual vault.
Unfortunately, you cannot backup a folder, so if something goes wrong on the hard disk, you might lose that data.

Hard disk manufacturers also offer full drive encryption. Seagate, for instance, is selling Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drives with its Drive Trust security technology. The drive incorporates full disk encryption that consumers will find easy to use.