PWD is a notebook for your passwords and personal data. PWD keeps your data encrypted in a file suitable for posting on the internet. Thus you can have all your personal data immediately available wherever you are in the world.

PWD can be used for an unlimited time for private and evaluation purposes. For a nominal fee of $15.00 per workstation, it can be used by business purposes: Send me an email

***FORUM*** --- Discuss problems, suggest improvements, post your secret data, ...

***DOWNLOAD*** --- The ZIPed program and instructions

There are two types of encryption supported by me:

1) PWD - Encrypts text as entered by you. This text is always encrypted when stored, thus there is never an unencrypted version of this data on your hard drive. This is suitable for keeping your passwords, credit card info, etc. Normally you never have need to view the encrypted file, PWD2.DAT; however you may do that if you wish, for example to post it on the internet so you have all your data available wherever you go, or to send secret messages to your friends. The instructions for doing this are given below.

2) NoSee - Encrypts files you select on your hard drive. Removes all traces of the unencrypted file and substitutes an encrypted version that is not suitable for EMail or internet. It is intended to remain on your hard drive. The site for this is NoSee 

Pretty easy:

1. Create a directory, for example c:\PWD, which is to hold the program.
2. Download the ZIP file and copy PWD.EXE into that directory
3. Create a shortcut to PWD.EXE and name it what you like and put it in a convenient place such as your desktop or the Microsoft Shortcut Bar, if you have one. 

 The first time you use PWD, you will be notified that it is time to chose your password. The amount of security PWD provides depends on what kind of password you choose. If your dogs name is Sandy and you chose a password of "Sandy", obviously you have no security. Now if you chose "m7uu89Pz$$x", you have terrific security, but that is a pain to memorize. Chose something you can memorize, but which is not in any dictionary or phonebook or is not a simple modification. "App1e" (using the numeral 1 instead of the letter l) is not a good trick. Hackers quickly figure that out.

Note that the point of PWD is that you only have to learn one password, so don't be afraid to add some junk. So maybe chose one like "Apple#eu8" or "%5aPPLE".

Anyway, whatever you do, don't forget the password. Neither I nor anyone else can recover your data if you forget it! 

 Initially, you see a field to enter the password. Except for the first time, you will not be able to see what you enter.

 You also see instructions: "Type password and press <Enter>". If you got here by accident, just press <Enter> with no password (or click on Abort).

 At the bottom, you will see a button that takes you to your home directory, where PWD2.DAT, your encrypted text, resides. You will also see a place to click to get to the home site of PWD (which works if you are connected to the Internet.)

 As soon as you enter the password, you will see a message in yellow: "Randomizing". That means the password is being converted to an internal key. If it is taking too long, just click on Abort and chose a lower security level (discussed later).

 On entering a password, you will see a notepad-like screen. Edit as you wish using European/American character set - use whatever keys are on the keyboard, English, Spanish, Danish, etc. but not Russian, Chinese, etc.

 "Exit" means to check whether there are changes to the data. If none, it is the same as "Abort". Otherwise, it prompts whether you want to save those changes. If you elect "no" then that is also the same as "Abort"

 "Abort" means to exit immediately losing changes, if any.

 If the password is incorrect, the decryption will result in garble. You will get a red "Garbled?" button which simply explains why your decryption did not work and what to do about it. 

There are 26 levels of security, a-z. The default is "c" which should be sufficient. The higher the security, the longer the yellow "Randomizing" process takes. The reason is explained later, in case you are interested.

But in general, even more security is gained by simply increasing your password size. For example, "dog44Z" at security level "c" will take about 32 years to hack. The same at security level "e" will take about 53 years. But "dog44Za" at security level "c" will take about 1,721 years!

The tradeoff is delay time while the password initializes versus typing a long password. You chose.

1) Start PWD as usual - Don't enter password

2) Click on "Go to home directory"

3) When it appears, Abort PWD

Why would anyone want to do that?

Well, you may want to post your data on the internet, or send it to someone or back it up (remember to do that!). Also if you want a security level other than "c" you need to create a one-character file entitled "PWD2.lev" in that directory.

This is a pain. The idea is that you will chose a password and never change it in your life. But if you shared with your spouse and you no longer want to, it can be done as follows:

1) Open NOTEPAD. You will not save this document - it is temporary

2) Decrypt as usual. Copy/Paste all the data to the NOTEPAD

3) Exit from PWD and rename PWD2.DAT to OldPWD.DAT.

4) Update PWD2.lev to whatever security level you want (or simply delete it, if you want the default of "c".)

5) Start PWD. It will prompt you for a new password

6) When the screen comes up "Replace this data...", copy/paste all your data from the NOTEPAD to the window.

7) Exit (answer "yes" to "save?")

8) TEST BY STARTING PWD AND ENTERING YOUR PASSWORD!

9) It should work perfectly. If so, delete OldPwd.DAT (Your ex-spouse can still open that!)

Whew! Finished. I hope you never have to do that again.

I have a lot of sites I go to, with a unique password on each site. To look them up quickly, I listed them in alphabetical order at the end of my credit card data. Then I insert a line exactly like this
<search>
at the head of the list.

As a result, when my file decrypts, I get a new set of options at the top: "Search Character" and "Reset". If you enter a "c", for example, as the search character, then the first line after <search> that begins with c will be the beginning of text. "Reset" just restores your whole text.

All work in PWD is done in what I have named "Internet Friendly Characters (IFC)". An IFC is a character which can be posted on network54 forums or sent via email without restriction. Here are the IFCs you can use when entering your data:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789
ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞß
àáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþÿ
!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[\]^_`{|}~‘’¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿

Here are the IFC characters you cannot use: ×÷

You can also use spaces, of course, and line feeds. Spaces are not internet friendly in that multiple spaces get converted to one space by network54 and other sites. And line feeds are actually two characters. So on encryption, these are converted to the following two characters "×÷". In other words, if your password file looks like this:

SSN 343-52-1331
DOB 1952-02-29

Then what is encrypted is this

SSN×343-52-1331÷DOB×1952-02-29

This means nothing to you except that you have to avoid typing the symbols for multiplication and division. And, finally,  is reserved for PWD use only. So do not try to enter ×÷ in your text (who wants to anyway?). 

You don't need to know any more in order to use PWD fully. The write-up on program internals is an arcane description of the encryption scheme in case you want to judge for yourself whether PWD passes the tests: Snake Oil Cryptography

 Download the PWD zip file and extract "Internals.txt". There you will find a detailed description of how security is achieved by PWD. If you pay the commercial fee ($15), you will be sent the entire source code suitable for running in VB 5.0 or later. Then you can not only judge, but tailor to your own specifications!