horcrux

Why it's ranked here

The design is focused, understandable, and practical for unusual long-term custody needs. It uses operating-system randomness, streams large files, and supports flexible recovery thresholds. The verdict is tempered by an explicitly acknowledged data-integrity issue and a cryptographic format that authenticates neither headers nor encrypted content.

What's good

A fresh 32-byte key comes from the system cryptographic random source. Shamir sharing makes the recovery threshold configurable instead of requiring every piece. Processing streams data, so large files need not fit in memory. When every piece is required, encrypted content is divided among them to reduce total storage.

Tradeoffs

Encrypted content lacks an authentication check, so corruption or modification may not be detected before producing damaged output. The stream mode uses a fixed zero initialization value, although each split receives a new random key. When the threshold is below the total, every piece carries a full encrypted payload, multiplying storage use. Output pieces use ordinary file permissions.

How to use it well

Use it for personal archives or transfers where pieces can live on separate USB devices or independent online channels. Pick a threshold that tolerates realistic loss, test recovery, then track every storage location yourself. It does not provide location management, authenticated integrity, access auditing, or a general backup system.

Observed

Primary language

Go

Repository license

MIT; adapted Shamir source files identify their inherited implementation as MPL-2

Interface

Command-line utility with split and bind commands

Install surface

Homebrew tap, Scoop extras bucket, and downloadable binary releases

Release platforms

FreeBSD, Windows, macOS, and Linux

Release architectures

amd64, ARM, ARM64, and 386

Dependencies

The Go module declares no external module requirements; source imports use the standard library and internal packages