PaperVault 2.0
PaperVault stores information as sequences of QR Codes you can print and scan easily, protected by a password only you know. Data is secured using industry-standard robust encryption algorithms.
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Vendor lock-in is a bad thing. Your data is yours and I don’t want to hold it hostage. Therefore, I’m publishing the data format used when printing to QR Codes. View the data format technical documentation ≫
Neat idea, seems to be easy to use and thoughtfully implemented, and it’s free. Scanning—and verification—can be done using an iPhone controlled from the Mac via Continuity. Larger documents get split into multiple QR codes, printed in a grid, but I was surprised how much one QR Code can store.
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What a great idea and nicely implemented. The application password you set is stored on disk as a binary plist containing an encrypted keybag (Derived key, salted, PBKDF2 with 10,000,000 rounds).
I wish it was open source. Or maybe a cross-platform CLI tool for decryption? It's difficult to rely on a tool for emergencies when it's only available on Apple's App Store and could be removed at any time. However, the author publishes the data format implementation.
I had trouble scanning high-density codes with lots of data using my webcams, but managed to do so using Continuity Camera and my iPhone. However, I'd personally suggest using only low- density codes to have some margin of error and account for paper / ink degradation over time.
In my experience, the tool works best with smaller amounts of information because the generated QR codes use more redundancy and easier to scan.
