CTI Text Encryption is a portable text encryption tool. It's ideal for sending sensitive information via insecure channels (email, online chat, web forums), although you can also use it to save confidential data in files or elsewhere.

The program looks a little confusing initially, as it has almost no text labels or prompts. Fortunately its buttons do have tooltips, so hover the mouse over each one and you'll soon understand how it all works.

The process starts by entering the encryption passwords you'd like to use. CTI Text Encryption supports up to four, a welcome approach as it means you may not have to use garbage like "lF@,%*\jwX"; entering more memorable words like the first names of your four best friends at college (or something) will be just as hard to guess.

Next, at a minimum, type or paste text into the source box and click "Encrypt". The program uses SHA512 to hash the passwords, 256-bit AES (Rijndael) to process the text, and displays the results in the "Encrypted" box. ("Hello world" became "ZNz02G1/x+susprkZONobg==", for instance.)

You can then copy the encrypted text to the clipboard, and paste it into an email, a forum message, maybe Notepad (if you want to save it somewhere), whatever you like. A friend who also has a copy of CTI Text Encryption - and knows your passwords - should be able to read what you've said, while everyone else will be locked out.

There is one other slightly pointless feature, in the ability to set a font. This is preserved as a part of the encryption, so whoever is decrypting it will see the font you chose, as well as the text. We can't quite see why you would care about this, but if you do then it'll be good news.