Safe Pad 1.2 : Text Editor to securely protect your documents using strong AES Encryption

I have recently released version 1.2 of Safe Pad. Safe Pad is a encrypted text editor that allows you to protect your documents using strong FIPS Compliant AES Encryption using up to 2 passwords to generate your encryption key. Safe Pad is open source and has been released under the GNU Public License.

Version 1.2 of Safe Pad  includes lots of new usability features and the security of the application has been peer reviewed by security professionals with any amendments added into version 1.2.

You can read more about, and download Safe Pad from here.

Change Log in Safe Pad 1.2

• Use BCrypt as the internal password hash and increase the file format number to 1.1. Old files of version 1.0 are backwards compatible. They will get saved automatically to version 1.1.
• Made password 2 optional. I still recommend using 2 passwords, but you don’t have too.
• Enter on first field on passwords entry dialog box moves focus to second field. Enter on second field is the same as clicking the OK button.
• When doing a normal save over the top of a file, prompt the user if they want to overwrite the file.
• Implement panic key to quickly minimize the application. This is bound to the ESC key.
• Use AesCryptoServiceProvider instead of ManagedAES as it is FIPS compliant.
• Have the option to disable DetectURLS.
• When entering a password, implement an on-screen keyboard so that the user can avoid typing the password on the keyboard. This is to guard against key sniffers. This is a user request.
• Change 1.1 file format so that it generates a new salt for each save.
• Changed the PBKDF function (Rfc2898DeriveBytes) to perform 40,000 rounds when creating the encryption key.
• Add context menu to the rich text view to include all the standard editing features.
• Implement an application properties dialog to give more customisation to the user.
• Implement screen white hot key out to change th text to the same color as the background.
• Recent files list on the file menu.
• Whilst getting feedback on the application from security professionals, the common consensus seems to be that using Cascaded iteration of AES offers no additional security over doing it once. I have changed the new file format to only run AES once, but the 2 passwords are combined together first into a longer password.
• Implement Find and Replace.
• Add the word wrap option to the application settings.
• Add Help link to the Help Menu. This will load up a manual page onhttp://www.stephenhaunts.com
• Add Cut / Copy / Paste to context menu.
• If link selected in document, add a ‘Browse to Link’ option to the context menu.
• Export file to RTF.