Kremlin is the complete security program for Windows. The company that created Kremlin, Mach5, claims that if one billion computers were each searching for your encryption code at one billion keys per second; it would take over 10,000,000,000,000 years, more than the life of the universe, to crack your encrypted files. Well when I read this I said to myself, "I have to see how good this really is." What I found in Kremlin was much more than a simple encryption program.

The Kremlin program is actually a series of programs that allows you to do everything possible to make your sensitive data safe. First is Kremlin Encrypt. This is the heart of the set of programs. Kremlin Encrypt allows you to encrypt files, images, programs, and mp3s, anything with encryption algorithms like DES. There are several other algorithms as well. Such as IDEA, Blowfish, and Triple DES.

The encryption also allows an encryption key of up to 160 bits. The encryption key is your password. Another useful and important feature that Kremlin has is that after encrypting your files Kremlin will then securely delete the source files. This means that after your have encrypted the files the original copy is then deleted, outside of the normal Windows Recycle Bin.

This leads us to the second part of the Kremlin Program, the Secure Delete. You can choose to always delete the source files, the original files, or to leave them intact. But I would strongly recommend that you always delete them. The Secure Delete program allows you to replace the ineffective and almost pointless, security wise, Recycle Bin.

Window's Recycle Bin does not actually delete your files. In fact your files are just said to be deleted. Because in some cases you might have accidentally dragged a file into the Recycle Bin and then told Windows to deleted it. So to protect the dumb mistakes of the few Windows will not actually delete many files and text scraps. Therefore making your sensitive data no longer safe.

What Kremlin Secure Delete does is it will actually write over the area that the file is located with 1s and 0s. Then it writes over it with a random pattern of bits and their binary complement. I believe it writes over it anywhere from 2 - 8 times. Thus thoroughly erasing the data. Then it deletes it several times. Now that sounds secure to me.

The third part of the Kremlin program is Kremlin Sentry. Kremlin Sentry will, on occasions scheduled by you or whenever you specify, do a specialized wipe of the hard drive. You have a few choices. You can wipe all scraps, old files, deleted files, and excess slack at the end of the hard drive. Or you can do that and also remove all temporary files. Such as web history, temporary Internet files, and aliases to recent documents. The last choice that I remember is the complete wipe. This will securely delete everything on the specified hard drive, or floppy. This last option is simply a secure way to format a drive.

The last, and possible one of the nicest features of Kremlin, is Kremlin Text. Kremlin text is a basic word processor. It is as simple as notepad, but allows you to do more advanced actions such as add in images and adjust fonts and colors. The key to Kremlin Text is that it is completely secure. Everything you type into it is, upon being saved, encrypted with the chosen algorithm. The new, encrypted text, can now be copied and pasted into other documents and be sent to others. Kremlin Text also allows you to email others your encrypted document.

My Experience:

I downloaded the demo version of Kremlin a few months ago. And have been very happy. It works great. This software will work on Windows 95, 98, and even NT. I have not yet tested it on Windows 2000. There is also a Macintosh edition. The Windows version is very stable and never crashes. All of the features work so well. My computer actually works better now because of the annual hard drive wipes, in which the extra unused files are deleted.

Unfortunately the demo version only allows you to use one encryption algorithm. And there are a few other, very small, things different. But if you want your computer as secure as possible then you can also buy Kremlin for only $35. This is a great program and I would recommend it to anyone who wants good security on his or her computer.




Recommended: Yes