Fogpad: Document Editor with Encryption for Google Drive

Everybody uses cloud storage now. Some of the big name is Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive and many other nameable drives out there. Each cloud storage has its own capabilities, storage space and multiple add-ons that is used to enhance its capabilities. One such add on is done for Google Drive where there is a tool that can be used to create and encrypt your documents on the fly. Cool enough eh. Let’s see how it works.

So this FogPad (Only God knows what it means) is a tool used to create and edit documents (similar to Microsoft Office) and saves it automatically in your Google Drive storage. The good thing about this is, whenever you are creating a document (for Free account, you can create up to 10 documents) it will prompt you to password protect your documents (each and every one of them) and it will encrypt it with so called Military grade encryption which is 256 bits AES algorithm. Which is cool. You don’t have to install or use any other third party app in your machine before you can upload a password encrypted military grade encryption algorithm to your storage.

Now you may ask, “Hey dude, what’s the point of using this?” Well after a long thinking and research I found a very good reason for what we can use it. Let me give you a situation. Let say you want to send a secret message to your friend. Let say you guys are trying to rob a bank and you want him to know the plans in a secure communication crap. So you can use this Fogpad to actually encrypt your document, send it over the email and your friend can only open it if he or she knows the password. 256 bits of AES algorithm encryption is fairly hard to be cracked in a practical time limit so your document is fairly secure. But hey, isn’t it the same with the Secure Gmail plugin for Gmail which is used to send encrypted email to your friend and if they want to read it, they should know the password. Well yes. You are right. You can read how to encrypt your email using Secure Gmail here. But my dear viewers, SecureGmail will encrypt your email and not the attachment. Fogpad, actually encrypts your attachment file. So you can use SecureGmail and Fogpad side by side to encrypt your total communication process via email except for your Email Subject.

How to Use?

To use this tool, it’s very simple. Your job is to integrate Fogpad with your preferable Google Drive account. So what you got to do first is login to your Google Drive account and then browse to www.fogpad.net. Once there, go to About tab and click this button;

Once you click this button, a pop up will appear asking you to which Gmail account you want integrate this Fogpad. Once chosen your email, you will be connected to your Google Drive and Fogpad. Your first task is to password protect your document that you will be creating. You will be prompted with something like this;

Once you click this button, a pop up will appear asking you to which Gmail account you want integrate this Fogpad. Once chosen your email, you will be connected to your Google Drive and Fogpad. Your first task is to password protect your document that you will be creating. You will be prompted with something like this;

Please. SET A STRONG LONG PASSWORD! At least 10 characters with combination of lower case, upper case, numeric and special characters. If the document is important and very private for you, better do so. Once set the password, you will go to Fogpad editor. Now you can start writing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would say this is an effortless way of security a document in your Google Drive. It’s easy to use, straight forward and relatively secure (I have not cracked the file yet, so don’t ask me how secure is secure). But there are a few downfalls which I think might be a difficult to use this tool. Well first off is the usability, a user can only use this file when he or she is connected to the Internet. Even if the file is stored in the local machine as well, they only can be opened if there is internet connection. So remotely managing the file offline is not possible for now as they do not have any desktop client to be installed and to decrypt the document. Seconds, only Word documents can be stored and used in Fogpad. Excel and Presentation files are a big no no for now, maybe they will improve in future, we might not know. But for now, it’s only the Word documents. Thirdly, since this is a symmetric encryption algorithm method, the user must know how to send the password set for the document to the recipient. This has to be educated so that the user know how to send the password securely and not using the email to send it as plaintext or else there is no use of encrypting your file and sending it over.

But overall, this is a great effort to be used for cloud storage lovers who has their private documents in the cloud and wishes to encrypt them. Let me know your feedback about Fogpad at the comment box below. Until my next post, see ya!