When you create private storage vaults (volumes) in SafeHouse to hold your confidential files, SafeHouse adds a new phantom (virtual) drive letter to Windows to make it easy for you to work with your files.

The reason we chose the approach of working with new Windows drive letters to represent your protected storage areas was to create an unmistakable distinction between your confidential data and any of the other files you may have on your PC. This also makes it easy for us to completely hide all the file and folders names relating to your sensitive files.

We believe our concept makes using a privacy product like ours very simple to understand. You enter your password and a new drive letter appears. Everything you put into that new drive letter is protected. That's all you need to know.

On the other hand, products which attempt to lock individual folders on your standard C drive could confuse users because you might forget which folders are protected and which are not, and you might end up saving a confidential file to a folder which is not secure.

SafeHouse hard disk encryption is a perfect tool for distributing private data files to others.

The SafeHouse trial version is freely distributable and can be included on your CDs and DVDs if you have a need to publish or distribute private information to your customers. All SafeHouse encrypted files can be read without restriction using the trial version as long as you know the password.

My recommendation for publishing encrypted data to CD/DVD is that you include our setup program on the CD/DVD along with your SafeHouse volume file which contains your data. This way, the recipient has everything they'll need to read the data.

Although the trial version expires after 30 days, its ability to read protected data never expires. Your customers will never need to purchase their own copy of SafeHouse unless they wish to author their own encrypted files. And even then, the trial version can be used to author new files for up to 30 days.

Our approach to this is very similar to how Adobe lets you work with PDF files. The PDF reader is free to anyone, yet to create PDF documents you need to purchase their authoring tool.

The techniques just described can be used to distribute thousands of CDs, or even a single CD containing information which you cannot risk being intercepted along the way. For example, I know a number of our customers who create SafeHouse CDs to send QuickBooks accounting files to their accountants. This way, they can send the CD by mail and not worry about anyone gaining access to their records. They then communicate the SafeHouse password by phone.

I was recently discussing with a colleague the diffrences between how home users search for a security product, and how corporate IT managers search for the same thing. I thought I'd share some of these thoughts as they relate to SafeHouse.

SafeHouse is encryption software. Using encryption, our software is able to completely lock, hide and protect your files.

Corporate IT managers recognize that encryption is the means to accomplish this goal. Of course, it's sort of their job to know that. When they go searching for products in Google, they include the word encryption in their search phrases.

On the other hand, when normal people go searching for a security product to keep their files safe, they rarely use the term encryption in their searches. This is because they know they want security and privacy, but they don't necessarily know that encryption is the technology that will give them what they're looking for. And of course, one shouldn't expect them to know this or anything else about encryption to use an encryption product. After all, when I shop for a car with anti-lock brakes, I don't go searching for the parts used to manufacture them -- I just want a safe car.

I've also found over time that encryption seems to be a scary word for many people outside the industry. People inquire about SafeHouse in their search for total privacy, and sometimes tell me they don't want a complicated encryption product. Well, they're half right. They really do want an encryption product (even if they don't yet know it); they just don't want a complicated one.

SafeHouse is simple and easy to use. How simple? Watch our video.

So if you're looking to keep your files and folders safe and out of site so nobody else can get at them, please take a look at SafeHouse. It's as strong as an encryption product as you'll find, yet you'll never see the word encryption when using the product. That's right, after countless conversations with people where I've had to explain that encryption is indeed the technology needed to gain the desired level of privacy, we decided it was time to learn from our customers and remove all references to the term encryption from our product, except for one page in the help file and some information on our website.

What does all this mean?

If you're looking for a strong encryption product, try SafeHouse. And if you're not looking for an encryption product, but would rather get a product to keep your files private -- try SafeHouse. They're one in the same.

The only thing you'll need to remember when you choose SafeHouse is your password.

BTW - If you can't remember your password, we have a really cool feature that lets you securely store your password on a USB memory stick. SafeHouse can read the password from the memory stick so you'll never need to type it yourself. We call this our virtual smartcard feature.

Every now and then a prospective customer asks me if SafeHouse contains any secret or hidden back doors that might allow us as the publisher, or worse, law enforcement, to somehow gain access to files encrypted with SafeHouse.

Answer: Absolutely no way never!

What's interesting is that some people would rather we actually had some special way in so that if they lost their password we might have some way to help them. But that would create all kinds of problems -- make that nightmares. How could we ever know who is the rightful owner of the data?

If you're worried about losing your password, you should consider purchasing our Professional Edition which has some methods for you to reset the password yourself based on entering your own personally-chosen administrator password. This administrator password must be established before you start using the product. You can find videos on how all this works here.

SafeHouse is designed such that we have no way at all to assist you, law enforcement or anyone else recover a password under any circumstances. This is why our product is so secure and why people choose it over some of our competitors.

Do we ever get calls from law enforcement? Yes, we do. And yes, I would take that to mean that some not-so-fine citizens have decided to use SafeHouse to encrypt things that aren't on the up and up. But the answer is always the same: There is nothing I can do to help.

Something more realistic:

The majority of our revenue comes from large corporate licenses. These companies use SafeHouse to safeguard a variety of things from financial projections to topical maps of where to drill for oil. And because they're big companies with deep pockets, they often find themselves involved in legal matters in the standard course of business. Here, I'm talking about routine legal disputes; not illegal activities.

What's important to these large customers is that there is absolutely no hidden way in to SafeHouse. If there was, you can imagine that I'd be slapped with a subpoena every now and then from oposing parties in any of their private legal matters. And since I don't have millions of dollars to put up a legal fight, I'd be in a very awkward position. What if it were the Feds asking me to help them get in using a Patriot Act subpoena? If I didn't comply immediately, I'd be a terrorist.

The bottom line is that companies and individuals using SafeHouse to protect important files want the sole and exclusive right to determine when and if they might disclose that information to another party. Just because somebody sends you a subpoena doesn't necessarily mean they're entitled to the information. A case in point is when Google fought off a Federal Government subpoena about a year ago when the Feds demanded they hand over histories of how people search.

Since SafeHouse has no way in, anybody using it can know with absolute certainty that they are 100% in charge of when that data is disclosed. I cannot be threatened with subpoenas, jail, violence or even bribed with huge amounts of cash.

No way in means no way in.