privacy for personal notes

[ljh 1]

How does one go about securing a degree of privacy for notes?  Can certain or all notes or certain notebooks be designated password protected?

Thank you  Apologies that this is a very basic question. I cannot find the answer.  

[PinkElephant 6,245]

Your whole account is encrypted, password protected and if you activate it protected by a 2 factor authentication.

On desktop you should use your own user account, with a password, and enable the disk encryption. On mobile the flash memory is encrypted by default, set a passcode and biometrical ID.

If you take these measures - that protect all of your data, not only EN data - against whom do you want to protect your EN account ? Against yourself … ?

If you use EN on a shared computer, or one under admin control the advise is simple: Never install own software on such a device. Use the EN web client, if possible in a private browser window.

If you want to protect specific information: You can encrypt a text inside of a note. The text can be longer, but no formatting allowed (no bullets, checklists etc.). No attachments, no complete notes or notebooks.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005547

Hint: Never use EN to store sensitive information like bank account access, passwords or crypto wallets.

[gazumped 10,346]

Absolutely what the Elephant said... plus - most third-party apps have their own encryption.  It's also possible to password-protect an attachment file so it's unreadable to anyone other than the author and any intended audience.

[mijohnst 1]

I'm trying to encrypt text within one of my notes, but the option is not there.  I've watched the YouTube link above and I'm doing what I think is right.  Was it removed in version 10.40.9?   This should we helpful if I could get it to work.

[gazumped 10,346]

13 minutes ago, mijohnst said:

Was it removed in version 10.40.9?

Hi.  I'm on 10.40.9 and I can encrypt.  Are you highlighting purely text without any formatting such as bullets, tables or images?

[mijohnst 1]

Thank you, Gazumped.  I hadn't realized that being in a code box was considered formatting.  I'm dumb.  I removed the code box and boom...it was there.  Thanks very much for the reply.  

[gazumped 10,346]

No dumbness was detected here - Evernote's encryption is a bit basic in its coverage.  Remember that most third party apps like spreadsheets,  word processors and (maybe?) some coding apps will allow you to save an encrypted- / password-protected file which can be attached to a note for more security... 

[mijohnst 1]

I'm looking forward to the day we'll be able to encrypt entire notebooks.  That would be so handy right now but I understand it's very complicated. 

[ehrt74 231]

On 7/12/2022 at 8:02 AM, PinkElephant said:

Your whole account is encrypted, password protected and if you activate it protected by a 2 factor authentication.

Just to try to make something clear here, because i misread PinkElephant's comment the first time i read it. Data stored on Evernote's servers is to the best of my knowledge stored in a way so that the large Evernote server applications can read it. This is necessary to allow indexing and OCR to run (this is still done on the servers isn't it? Not locally on the clients)

[PinkElephant 6,245]

Yes, EN holds a master key to all accounts. It is used by bots (programs) that do OCR, search indexing, operate reminders and interfaces like calendars or sharing. All this can’t work without access to the data.

EN promises that accounts will not be accessed by humans, and that locks are in place to prevent it.

In the end it boils down to trust. The track record of EN on the security side is very good. When accounts were cracked it happened because users did not properly safeguard them; from observation of forum posts reused passwords were the most common weakness.