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For encrypting text files, I just use vim's `:X` command and enter a pass phrase. Simple, easy, portable, works everywhere. I have configured my .vimrc to `set cryptmethod=blowfish2` and disable backup/swap files for encrypted files. Are there any issues with this? Is there any other option that will work on virtually all UNIX devices without installing anything additional?



It's so weird hearing what people are doing instead of PGP, and how bad it is. I had no idea vim even had this feature, but from what I've discovered in about 3 minutes of Googling, vim's "blowfish2" is the 64-bit-block Blowfish cipher in unauthenticated CFB mode. Just awful: Blowfish is weak, and attackers can manipulate the ciphertext of your files. This is why you want `age`.


Trying to unfuck vim's encryption spawned a very interesting Github thread, if anyone is interested: https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/638



Damn, the Vim developers seem to be a particularly unpleasant group of people.


Welp, I'm switching to neovim.


Just… wow.


I learned about this vi feature the hard way—by accidentally encrypting something important with no idea about what I had typed in as the key.

Luckily for me, vi defaulted to Enigma encryption back then…




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