Forums Community AxCrypt 2 makes me sad… Reply To: AxCrypt 2 makes me sad…

#6540 Reply

Svante
Spectator

Hello all!

Just a quick note from me, Svante, the developer of both AxCrypt 1 and 2.

To be honest – I’ve only read through the longer posts superficially, but I think I get the general drift. First some undisputable facts:

– AxCrypt 1 was made by me, myself and I with my own private fully own one-man company Axantum Software AB. (AB is a swedish form of incorporation, somewhere between LLC and Inc.),

– AxCrypt 2 is made by me and small team of developers, designers, etc from the company AxCrypt AB in which I am co-owner and co-founder which has the rights to use the AxCrypt brand, sites etc, granted by Axantum Software AB.

AxCrypt 1 is a Windows-only simple password based AES-128 file encryption software written in C++, which has on the plus-side been very stable for almost 15 years, and on the minus side not really been developed at all for 15 years. The cool thing is that it’s still useful! AxCrypt 1 is entirely free and only released under the GPL license.

AxCrypt 2 is multi-platform hybrid client and SAAS infrastructure which includes a key server for public key based secure sharing of encrypted files, a online password manager, and support for AES-256 and RSA-4096 for the PKI parts. It is written in C# and currently is released on Windows, Android, iOS. Soon Mac OS X. We may even go Linux it’s not a big step. AxCrypt is GPL open source and free for some functionality on the Windows platforms. Advanced features, keyserver, stronger encryption, other platforms require a paid subscription plan.

Just clearing those things up first.

Then, apart from some issues with the tone of voice in the discussion, I essentially agree. Yes, both are right.

What I want AxCrypt to be, and I think it is until proven otherwise, is properly implemented strong encryption with clearly defined security and as simple a model as possible to analyze. There are always attack vectors, and we try to be very open with what they are. We want this strong encryption utility to be packaged in such a simple and easy to use package, that just about anyone can install it and use it.

I will not agree that I think AxCrypt users are stupid, ignorant or whatever was mentioned above. However, I have 15 years of experience dealing with support issues from a total of perhaps 10 million users. A very, very small percentage of these users have any issues at all. But from the ones that do, I have seen patterns of common mistakes sometime causing dataloss due to mistyped or forgotten passwords. Most of the things that AxCrypt 2 is criticized for above are functions defined as a result of specific, concrete and actual situations with actual users.

So, yes, AxCrypt is made to be encryption for the masses. The 99%. Not the 1%. I think the biggest reason why encryption is not more widely used is because 99% of the software, caters to the 1% of the users. I’m trying to change that.

But, please! I like criticism, in fact, that’s the other big inspiration for developing how AxCrypt works. So keep it coming!

  • This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by  Svante.