I've misplaced my second USB Thumbdrive which contained some confidential data like emails and account numbers.

I was wondering if there is any free software available to lock or secure thumbdrives. I know this won't be the last time I'll be losing it considering they keep on getting smaller.

Truecrypt - open source, easy to use, can run installed or from a thumb drive, and with a good passphrase it's unbreakable:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Truecrypt - open source, easy to use, can run installed or from a thumb drive, and with a good passphrase it's unbreakable:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

I confirm : a very good piece of software, to encrypt volumes and USB keys. Can even create an "hidden encrypted file" within an encrypted file or volume.

For passwords there is Password Safe, quite nice. Also allows you to generate random passwords of whatever length.

Very slick. I love that keyfile option. Great tip.

Later versions of Winzip also do AES 256. It's not free but most people have it already and might be faster/easier for some people to use.

Peter

Truecrypt - open source, easy to use, can run installed or from a thumb drive, and with a good passphrase it's unbreakable:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Best feature of Truecrypt? It's free...

It's got enough features to put commercial software to shame. It can also be installed on any computer temporarily to give on the fly access. Volumes can be named in any way, and you can even mount a whole unformatted partition.

How does Truecrypt compare to (say) PGP disk? Any views?

Truecrypt is like PGPdisk on steroids.

Another vote for Truecrypt

Thank you all for your replies )