15-Minute Reviews :: SecureDNA 2007 v1.6

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s review is on SecureDNA 2007 version 1.6 by Bildsoft – A suite of functionality for a variety of needs.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Bildsoft SecureDNA 2007 is the new fast and easy encryption suite developed by Bildsoft, which provides high-level protection for every PC user.

Bildsoft SecureDNA 2007 is the all-in-one security suite of Bildsoft, which provides high-level protection for all kind of PC users. User can do unlimited operations at the same time, without closing or moving any window, due to its innovative technology.”

Quick Pros

• Interface is easy to use, but does have quirks
• Various ways of encryption including file, folder, CD, USB, e-mail and private favorites
• Secure-erase files or folders
• Includes RoboForm Free in package

Quick Cons

• No way to set the default page to be the ‘All Functions’ tab visible
• No settings to adjust (or see) what level of secure erase the application uses
• Steganography limited to bitmaps and wave files
• No self-contained encryption for file/folder or email
• File manager is simply a list of previously encrypted items and their last-known location
• Too many referrals to other paid programs

Expansion

After struggling to get the application registered (9 tries with different registration codes to get it to work), I finally got the application installed and running. Upon your first launch of the application, you are greeted with a window that has an orange bar along the top, populated with the page name you’re on, or the element you’re hovering. On the right side of the bar, you are greeted by two buttons for ‘trials’ of other softwate (Safest 2006 and Crypter 2006), a button to update the software, a button to the Plus! tab (which is essentially a page for additional information, links, etc.), a quick-access window, user manual (Which simply is a link to download a PDF) and a bug submission button. In thed main window, you are greeted by a large ring of icons with the software logo large in the middle. On the right of the screen you will find a bar with links to 6 different functions; This bar can be closed and has to be to use the All Functions tab effectively. I found myself preferring to use the All Functions page instead of the Home page, mostly because the Home page does not give a good ‘feel’ and does not list all the functionality. There is no way to set the All Functions page as the default page, which would irritate me in the long haul with this application. One of my biggest quirks with the interface here is the window size; The window is not resizable, and there is a lot of wasted space (And I mean a lot.) This wouldn’t be too bad, except that the window is almost the same size as a 1024×768 display window, minus a small border. Sure, the window can be moved, but this does seriously hinder the drag and drop functionality of the applications unless you’re running 1280×1024 or higher; Statistics around the internet show otherwise though, that 1024×768 is one of the most common resolutions, if not the most common. This application will leave people running on 800×600 in the cold however; The window, not being resizable, falls off the side of the screen and essentially cuts of icons no matter where you position the window. As well, when you’re processing encryptions, it feels like you’re jumping through hoops for the application. For example, when you click on Encrypt a File, a sidebox comes up on the right. Then you have to click on the ‘Choose the file’ button (in the sidebox), then choose the file (in the middle of the screen), then click on Choose the Destination (in the sidebox), then choose a destination through a save dialog (in the middle of the screen) which makes you have to type a filename as well, then click on Type the Password (in the sidebox), then enter the password or store it on a USB drive (in the middle), then go back to the sidebar and choose to delete the original (A checkbox that could have been chosen earlier too), then click the When Ready button. Most of the application is like this and is a lot of mousing and just feels like a lot of hoops to just do one thing.

There is a lot of variety for encrypting your data. File, folder, CD, USB encryption, as well as Private Favorites and E-Mail. While I didn’t have a great amount of time to test these all (I did not test Encrypt a CD or USB Storage), the ones I did try all did seem to work as intended, though again the ‘jump through hoop’ syndrome showed up all over the place, making the process feel tedious. The process of encrypting and decrypting does seem pretty quick as well for being AES-256 according to the website here (Or do they use Blackhorse Algorithm? )

Another feature in this application is the secure shredding. While it seemed to work well (I could not recover the file afterwards with a quick tool I had), the process seemed rather quick, making me wonder what level of erasing is done? I could not find reference to it on the website or in the PDF. I would have hoped for this to be user-selectable, but I could not find an option for this.

Steganography is also in this application as well, and does seem to work well from my quick tests. However, I feel that it is too limited to be useful; You can only use bitmap (bmp) files which are not indexed, or wave files; Both of which are not used much, if not all anymore. As well, the steganography is limited to text only, making this limited in usefulness.

RoboForm Free is included in this application bundled in which is a fairly powerful; But again, this is the Free version, capable of being downloaded separately and seems like another way to try to get you to purchase other products through visibility.

I do have a few concerns with this application however. First-off, for file, folder and email encryption (did not verify with other settings), there is no option allowing you to create a self-encrypted file, forcing whomever is receiving the file to have the application as well, or find an alternative to decrypting, if at all possible. I also think that while the File Manager is great in concept, its implementation is poor; Being simply a table of encrypted items and pointing to their last-known location is a bit of an issue; I deleted a few of my test files, and they still showed up in the list, making this a little difficult to use unless you always keep your files where you encrypted them.

Final Verdict

While this application had promise, it’s interface fell short, as did much of its functionality. No self-extracting options visible, steganography’s limited in usability, and the erase function is a bit questionable due to the fact that we really don’t know what form of secure erasing is done without further research or clarification. For free, I would likely steer people away from this title; While it works as advertised, it is not the greatest suite I’ve seen; The fact that if your system crashes, you’d have to hope the trial version allows you to decrypt your data is a bit of a risk I’d likely not take. As for paying $34.95 for this title, I would expect some maturing from this title before I would contemplate purchasing it or recommending it to another.

Posted by BladedThoth on Monday, October 01, 2007