Why do I have to enter my encryption password each time? (Pro)

If you’re locking your journal or entry with the Encryption Lock, you will have noticed that you have to enter your password and hint each time. We know, this isn’t ideal, but we do it because it is the most secure option. If we saved your password on file, that’s another potential risk of unwanted users reading your entries. In this case, we’d also have access to your entries—even though our privacy policy doesn’t let us view your entries without consent.

We may implement some solutions down the road, but for now this is the safest way of locking your entries.

What does Remember Password do when locking a journal or entry?

If you check the “Remember Password” box in the locking popup, upon re-locking you’ll never have to enter the password again. Just a single click and your entry will be locked!

Here is the new journal locking flow with Remember Password enabled:

1. Click the lock button next to the journal you want to protect:

2. Enter a password, hint, check “Remember Password” and then “Lock”:

3. Unlock the journal to gain access:

4. Upon re-locking, you’ll see a window like this and all you have to do is click “Lock”:

And that’s it! If you’d like to change the saved password, you can simply click “Enter a New Password” and start the process again. This works the same for entry locking as it does for journal locking (shown above).

Do you have access to the user password? It is stored on your server after all, so why can’t you read it?

When an entry is encrypted, Penzu stores the password using a one way encryption function, meaning that once it is encrypted there is no way to reverse the process and retrieve the original text.

If you have access to the random password, can you unlock my entry?

No, not without your password.  The random password and your password are combined to create a key to unlock the entry.

What is the process of encryption? (Pro)

When you lock an entry in your Penzu Pro account using encryption, we go to extra lengths to protect and store your password and encryption key. Each time you lock an entry, we combine your password with a random password to create a unique “key”. This key is what is required to encrypt and decrypt your entry.

You can read more about Encryption Locking here.

What if I lose my password?

If you lose your password for an entry that is locked using the Basic Lock, you can contact us via email at support[at]penzu.com and we can retrieve it for you.

If, however, the entry was locked using the Encryption Lock, your password cannot be retrieved. If you have forgotten it entirely, we cannot help you and the entry will remain locked indefinitely.

When I edit an encrypted entry, is it vulnerable? (Pro)

No, when an encrypted entry is unlocked, the contents remain in session data only, and dumped once the entry is locked again.

Why aren’t encrypted entries searchable? (Pro)

Once an entry is encrypted, the contents aren’t visible by anyone unless they have the encryption key. This includes us, and so we can search encrypted entries unless they are unlocked. The encryption key is made up of the user password and a random password we generate. To learn more, you can read more in the security section of this Help page.

What is Encryption Locking? (Pro)

Encryption Locking is available to Penzu Pro users only. It works similar to Basic Locking except the entry is encrypted on our servers using military-grade 256-bit encryption and is unreadable by anyone except the password holder. The contents of encrypted entries aren’t searchable, and need to be unlocked in order to be searched.

What is locking?

Locking is an extra safe-guard for your entries. It allows you to add a password to individual entries so that if you happen to leave your account open or forget to log out on a public computer, your most cherished entries are safe from on-lookers.

What is Basic Locking?

Basic Locking is available to both Free and Penzu Pro accounts. For example, if someone managed to guess the password to your Penzu account, they would need to enter another password to unlock your locked entries.

While it protects people from viewing your entry, the actual file on our server remains unprotected and in text form. Entries that are locked using the Basic Lock are still searchable from the Entries page.

If you’d like to protect your entries on our servers as well, you have to use the encryption lock option, which is only available to Penzu Pro users.

How do I lock an entry?

To lock an entry, simply click on the “Lock Entry” button on the toolbar above the Pad.

You will then be prompted to enter and re-enter a password, along with a password hint. Once the entry is locked, it can’t be read or edited until the correct password has been entered and it has been unlocked.

Penzu Pro accounts allow you to lock an entry with 256-bit AES encryption. In order to lock entries, you must be logged in.