How to back up and encrypt data using rsync and VeraCrypt on macOS (see change log)

[@kanenick]

You don’t just talk the talk. You actually walk the walk. Love your videos man!

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for the push!

[@Juliozz3]

The affiliate links are more than OK, you should be rewarded for your efforts on the channel. That's why I don't skip ads on YT, the content creators deserve the ad revenue

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for the feedback and for helping content creators earn a living.

[@theoneD1]

@@sunknudsen well, if all else fails, which i think you will prevail, then you could always be a university teacher/lecturer. Your very good at teaching ;)

[@ManiMani-ku5df]

Found your channel while searching for PGP and How to encrypt files. I have to say your videos have a really good quality! Keep up the good work. I have shared your channel to my friends as well. Thank you for sharing all the valuable information.

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for the push Mani. 🤓

[@zean_moore]

Sun, Thank you for all the privacy guide videos. This is great content!

[@zukumi.]

Damn, another quality content by Sun, very very underrated! Keep up the good work and have a great day!

[@NoWay2SeeTheirHoax]

Thank you for the content, Sun. I'd like to see more videos about backups.

[@MarkSwanYVR]

I’m so glad I discovered your channel - absolute gold!

[@dezinsekcia]

14:40 hahaha NAILED IT maan i'm your fan!!!

[@dg9158]

Wow man, you just earned yourself a new subscriber! Why don't you have a million subscribers already? Amazing explanation and walkthrough!

[@tothemoon8465]

Great resource to revisit. Thank you for this, Sun!!

[@BBBB-hx6et]

Bro you are so underrated, keep it up you will blow up anytime now, respect for the good content

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for the push. The channel is slowing growing thanks to the support of its community. 🤓

[@BBBB-hx6et]

Sun Knudsen yup, so do not give up, bigger and bigger 👍🏼😎

[@Didi-jo5gr]

Thank you for this video. Is there any way to verificate pgp keys at applications that you downloaded via brew?

[@sunknudsen]

Great question... no. That being said, Homebrew does use SHA256 checksums to validate formulas (which is better than nothing).

[@kostiantynkarzhanov9216]

Awesome video! Very interesting content! Thank you! 💛

[@karelledrumathe]

Great vid Sun! Thanks for the hard work you put into educating people

[@dpa5965]

Commenting for the YT algorithm and also say thanks!

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for the push!

[@vishal-zq3gk]

thank you for the privacy 🔏 content 🙏

[@sunknudsen]

Pleasure, thanks for caring about privacy 🤓

[@pabstube1]

This is killer knowledge! thanks for trying to explain as clear as posible. Do you have a patron account?

[@sunknudsen]

Hey, thanks for the push and for considering supporting the privacy guides! Please see sunknudsen.com/donate. I chose Liberapay over Patreon given Liberapay is open source and privacy-conscious.

[@R-ok3cl]

Thanks for the video: Wondering what’s wrong with using Time Machine? It also allows for encryption and is 10 times easier for the average user

[@aleksandrmikhailov3255]

Nice video, man. And especially the last speech :D

[@rebeccametivier9869]

I'm just wondering what the first few steps are for? I may have missed part of your video where you explained it, but is downloading straight from veracrypt bad? This is the first instruction video I've seen take these extra steps

[@sunknudsen]

Hey Rebecca, first steps on sunknudsen.com/privacy-guides/how-to-back-up-and-encrypt-data-using-rsync-and-veracrypt-on-macos are used to install Homebrew which is used to install GnuPG (used to very cryptographic signature of VeraCrypt… integrity of download) and macFUSE (used by VeraCrypt to mount certain file systems on macOS).

[@aaron6841]

Hey Sun a review of a good flash drive that's rugged enough to cope with daily use wear would be very interesting. Maybe the Samsung bar?

[@ugnijs]

I really appreciate your work. I am always looking to learn more about rsync for when good copies are needed to be copied to different disks. One question, are you sticking with bash shell or updating to zsh? (I'm trying to learn zsh for the future, but I'm just a beginner in shells.)

[@marshallhyasi6213]

Hi !. What do you think of Cryptomator. Also are you familiar with isolation apps such as Island and shelter on android?

[@sunknudsen]

Thanks for sharing. I haven't explored Cryptomator, but the project looks promising! I am not an Android user so cannot comment on the subject... might try Graphene OS some day!

[@schmittsimon]

Hi Sun - thanks Sun - after using your script successfully on my hackintosh I m now struggling on my ne M1 Mac...on Step 8 that symlink creation doesn't work. /usr/local/bin/veracrypt - no such file or directory. After creating that directory manually - the text --version result is empty as well... could you provide any feedback - Thanks in advance.

[@bw3450]

Thank you for all the information you share with us. On an M1, VC wants user to allow kernel extensions. This would seem to curtail a security feature of M1. Is that safe to do?

[@froekenur]

Hey Sun, yea being like Mr. Robot looks cool :) But what do is your thoughts about Cryptomator for cloud encyption?

[@sunknudsen]

Never heard of Crytomator. Thanks for sharing! Have you looked into Borg (see github.com/borgbackup/borg and github.com/borgbase/vorta)? My gut feeling is Borg is more private and secure alternative that also supports deduplication.

[@froekenur]

@@sunknudsen Thanks!

[@Juliozz3]

Sun, do you have any recommendations for learning bash script and unix commands? I want to start using the command line more often but right now I only know the very basics of it (pretty much just cd, ls, mkdir and rm commands)

[@sunknudsen]

Good question... Are you on macOS? I learned bash/shell scripting command by command trying to write cleaner scripts to automate things. You could have a look at the reference material and use man to learn more about what each command does... for example `man awk`.

[@thomasipad7719]

Great stuff, thanks! One problem with the affiliate links: They do not point to my countries Amazon site. And when i switch, i think that you loose the money .... any way around this?

[@beefvalve]

wow, that was a good video once again. hey sun, i think you should edit your videos in a way that your computer makes bleeping sounds every time characters are written to the screen, so it looks AND SOUNDS more like in those movies you know :-D

[@sunknudsen]

Haha, the funny thing is that most of what we see in movies doesn't really pay tribute to reality.

[@k3v1n96iy]

Is there a format that can do large files but also be cross platform too and not limited to 4gb

[@sunknudsen]

Thankfully yes… exFAT.

[@theoneD1]

I have a couple of questions is there a purpose for macFUSE OR FUSE for macOS? Do we even need to download and install it? "in Layman's Terms please :) "

[@sunknudsen]

Hey, FUSE for macOS (also known as osxfuse on Homebrew) is required to mount encrypted volumes on macOS.

[@theoneD1]

@@sunknudsen nuts... i deleted it because the antivirus software didnt like it, lol. no wonder veracrypt didnt work, i was starting to think that veracrypt is malware as well, thewww. ok thanks for clarying that up. ;)

[@dg9158]

I get this error on the last step.... can you help me please? rsync: link_stat "/Volumes/NO\ NAME/test" failed: No such file or directory (2) rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/rsync/rsync-54.120.1/rsync/main.c(996) [sender=2.6.9]

[@thorbag8695]

This guy needs to be BIG

[@Michael-it6gb]

There is a GUI version of VeraCrypt that works awesome. Teaching the average person to use Terminal commands in order to encrypt their data is very unnecessary, and they might end up making a mistake that's gonna cost them their most valuable memories. The learning curve is just another annoyance. They just want to secure their files, put away the storage device and move on with their lives. I'm a Linux user and I still use the GUI version of Vera and pretty much every other app as well.

[@FerrisGhazal]

Hey Sun, I've been trying to troubleshoot an error message I keep getting and can't seem to find a solution. I successfully move through all the steps until I get to running the "backup.sh". Once my Terminal asks "Inspect backup and press enter" I am returned with "Error: No such volume is mounted." Please Help

[@marclavigne961]

I'm a bit confused by step 3 "gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --recv-keys 0x821ACD02680D16DE" On veracrypts website I see their PGP public key can be found using ID=0x680D16DE ; This ID does not seem to come up with anything on openpgp server. Where does the 0x821ACD02680D16DE from the script come from? How do I know that is Veracrypts public key? Im trying to understand how I would go about using this command but I cant seem to understand where you got the key from at that point

[@sunknudsen]

Hey Marc, 0x821ACD02680D16DE (long ID, last 16 characters of fingerprint) and 0x680D16DE (short ID, last 8 characters of fingerprint) reference same public key with fingerprint 5069A233D55A0EEB174A5FC3821ACD02680D16DE mentioned on www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads.html. Not sure why VeraCrypt published short vs long ID as short is theoretically vulnerable to collisions. Hope this helps!

[@sampatterson2584]

Hi Sun, I was wondering if you could do a video on tips for privacy if you have a unique name. I have an extremely unique name and I am easily identified on the internet with my real address because of public records. I am looking for tips on how to remove this information on the internet or how I can keep as much of my real information off the internet as possible. Thanks!

[@sunknudsen]

That’s a great question... and a very hard problem to solve when government records are public domain. We have little to no control over that... Home addresses for example are tricky. The only thing that comes to mind is using a post-office box or a placeholder "home address". Will have to give this one more thought.

[@sampatterson2584]

​@@sunknudsen Thanks for replying. Another question that comes to mind about this topic is the way "famous" people hide there addresses. For example, company founders like Evan Spiegel or known hackers like Geroge Hotz? I guess if I cannot hide any of the information attached to my name, I'll have to use a pseudo anonymous name. However, this would get exposed if I were to have a larger online presence and show my face.

[@sunknudsen]

If I was rich and famous, I would use the address from one of my apartments and have someone pick up my mail and deliver it to me in bulk.

[@mikeg9344]

Hello Sun. How do you rate creating 256 bit AES encrypted images, using disk utility on macOS? This is how I have been backing up more sensitive files for the past several years.

[@MayaMachina-n8s]

tried creating and testing the symlink but what I ended up getting after posting the first command was "ln: ./veracrypt: file exists" and then for the 2nd one "zsh: command not found veracrypt" So, yeah, seeing how I'm running the M1 with 1.25.9 version of veracrypt, I'm gonna just stick to running the app itself until this gets addressed cuz for someone that's nowhere near as experienced in coding, this is a headache...

[@mattias0114]

Hi have you looked at the program called finalcrypt there are some exploit holes in veracrypt that dosnt protects your files if there is spywhere in your computer but file encryption insted of disk encryption fixes that. Finalcrypt use one time pad encryption and its really secure

[@sunknudsen]

My gut feeling is if the computer is vulnerable through a backdoor, keylogger or any other exploit, the encryption is pretty much useless whatever scheme is used. For sensitive use cases, I recommend using an ephemeral OS such as Tails on dedicated hardware. Using ARM is also better than using Intel when possible because of Intel ME.

[@sunknudsen]

Nonetheless, thanks for sharing... will look into OTP.

[@sunknudsen]

Interesting thread on the subject. crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/83360/will-otp-provide-quantum-resistance-under-5-conditions

[@kubamaliszewski1167]

Doesn’t macOS have something easier like nano?

[@wza360]

After solving issue with path, now I have another one - check script shows Integrity Check failed immediately after making backup. I definitely copy same hash key and it does not match. Any ideas anyone?

[@macgyver9013]

So for Traders who may be trading on multiple exchanges at any given time.. i assume self hosted VPN is best. Or Tor browser with killswitch. The only problem is in Chinada and USSA you cant trade on some exchanges so its nice to avoid those countries while using tor if possible ... so as i understand it, self hosted vpn would be best, then Tor browser, which is better than straight vpn with Suns firefox settings... but perhaps much too slow for trading. Trading requires a lot of account names and pw's and their respective emails, so maybe tor browser isnt best. So much to consider at all levels..not all exchanges offer authy or yubikey and only offer google auth

[@JohnSmith-zl8rz]

Where's rsync part?

[@wza360]

I have no idea why, but I keep getting error "rsync: link_stat "" failed: No such file or directory (2)" While I definitely have the dir there on that path. Any ideas would be very welcome. I used updated guide.

[@wza360]

Ok so the issue was very rookie - my mistake of using \ in spaces like in terminal, when in file backup.sh. So I deleted \ and left spaces = it worked. Another interesting issue was that my $USER system variable has a wrong url, because when I was restoring from backup it changed the home folder as one was taken already. I will figure out how to update it on system level

[@CanesFan65]

Seems like a LOT of work for the average person who just wants to secure files. How is this method better or worse than just Encrypting a Folder using Disk Utility (in macOS) by creating an Encrypted .DMG? I'm looking for a NON-Technical way of securing my files and this is just too complicated for me. I don't need or want to know how to do all this stuff. I have a "technical" day job and more technical stuff makes my head HURT. I just want to accomplish the end goal of securing my files. I recently bought a Aegis Fortress L3 Hard Drive as a simple (non-technical) solution but since they can be expensive I wanted to see if there was also a way to secure files on my regular Non-Secure external Hard Drives and USB drives. Using the internal macOS method in Disk Utility seemed to work pretty easily, I am just wondering if it is less secure than your method. Thanks!!!

[@rydmerlin]

Why don’t you use $HOME in your scripts? Also why don’t you use encrypted USB thumb drives with hardware encryption?

[@sunknudsen]

Good question about $HOME. Are suggesting using $HOME vs /Users/$USER? About encrypted USB thumb drives, using VeraCrypt is more portable (works on Linux, macOS and Windows) and peer reviewed.

[@IngrownMink4]

Very interesting content!

[@FloorEncer]

20:26 You silenced and covered up almost all the times you are saying the F word, and then you let it go through uncensored about Amazon. ¿Is that intentionally inconsistent? Not that I can understand Quebecois French, but do you have a vid in version Francaise. a la PainChaud, and Pan TheOrganizer? Would you censor the M mot, as in chien M mot? I had no idea the F word has no equal in French. In school I was assigned La p... respectueuse by Sartre. So I see it could be the P word. [I find this dubious: “F word”, can’t be reproduced in French. The closest is “putain”, but you tend to put it at the beginning or the end of the sentence. So if you wanted to say “I’m so F'ing word tired”, in French you’d say “Putain, je suis crevé”.] I can't read Le Journal de Montréal(just voiture ads and Quebecois slang), but I can handle Le Devoir(Le Monde du Nord, ou Canada). Ou La Presse. The ordinateur store on Phillips Square was probably before your time. I did not know Archambault has downsized. No more Camelot-Info, a computer bookstore on Phillips Square{first time I saw Iranian Uranium}. I don’t know if MicroBytes Centreville is the succesor. People say it isn’t what it was. Coles has been gobbled up by Chapters. I was in Cavendish out in the railyards when I discovered Coles. Waldo is not a French name, so it is "Où est Charlie." MTL n'est pas sourire aux touristes pour moi. À bientôt.

[@FloorEncer]

Since I got lost in "How to sign, encrypt and decrypt messages using PGP on macOS (adding privacy to email)," I have the cryptic results, but don't know what to do with them. At Apple's suggestion to use GPGtools/SUITE, I find out it is a 30 day free trial to GPG Mail 4, but if the user wants 'to roll their own with the source' that is their option. I'll find other sources for help to build a more secure computer experience. Something I can follow and understand.

[@MrNycticorax]

Don't want to start an OS war but I don't really understand why you're using macOS on a Mac instead of some well-engineered Linux distribution when talking about privacy & security. Would you mind elaborating on why we don't see you recommend your audience to apply the values and principles on which your channel is based to their workstation? Or why yourself don't use a system that better embodies these principles? :)

[@sunknudsen]

Great question... planning on publishing an episode on the subject shortly. Stay tuned!

[@MrNycticorax]

@@sunknudsen Noice!

[@k3lash174]

@@sunknudsen Interesting! Looking forward to hear your thoughts on an apple computer alternative since the t2 chip issue you have been talking about in another video.

[@SuperBorseth]

v4v

[@DarinCates]

Hard to follow bro. You said "I didnt prepare for this" ..... no kidding

[@thorbag8695]

lmao using an 80 gig file Wish me luck!

[@sunknudsen]

Should work, but comparing hashes will likely be very slow.

[@thorbag8695]

@@sunknudsen ik, just quit it. I made a 4 gig file but the thing is I don't know how to access that file, cuz it's coming up as a txt file...how do I make this accessible and usable?

[@sunknudsen]

@@thorbag8695 Which file are you referring to? The VeraCrypt encrypted volume?

[@thorbag8695]

@@sunknudsen nvm...just saw the entire vid again. It's not nerdy, it's one small step for effort, one GIANT leap for privacy (That is of course ignoring the NSA and my ISP)

[@IamTheGreatCornholioo]

the installation expense of veracrypt is reason #99999 why macos is dog crap compared to windows