quicken's encryption

I've never had a need to look into this for Quicken, but I HAVE on one occasion needed to break into QuickBooks for a client who had lost the password and couldn't get into their own system. It was disturbingly easy to locate a tool on the Internet to simply reset the QuickBooks password (if I remember correctly...it's been a while and I don't recall the details). There's probably such a tool out there for Quicken too, which is one of the many reasons why I also use Truecrypt. So, if the password can be easily reset, how well the file is encrypted may be a moot point.

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I don't think that is true ... as stated. Quicken's regular data file is encrypted; I don't think there is any added encryption for Quicken backups. I believe Quicken backups are exact copies of the fileset being backed up.

Starting with Q2008 R2, Quicken data files have had 2048 bit encryption.

I'll leave it to the security gurus to tell you how safe that should make you feel.

I think Quicken 2011's interface has been retooled so it behaves the way you'd expect it to. There's a new cash-flow tracking feature that lets you see how much cash will be in your accounts as Quicken forecasts the timing of your income and expenses.

Huh?

Thanks. I was just curious. Will continue to depend on TrueCrypt.

'What the encryption algorithm is' is less important than 'how easy it is to guess, find or reset the password'.

That "new" cash flow feature is not really "new" at all.

A few years back, that feature was in Quicken, but Intuit removed it.

It only took five or six years of customer complaints before Intuit put the feature back.

If I had to bet, I guess the "encryption" is simply LZW compression. Years ago even Microsoft found that files such as PowerPoint were too slow to load and too big to store, so they they started using LZW compression. Of course a password can be associated with the compression and I suspect that is how they separate data files on a per-year basis.