The project, called Crypton, comes from SpiderOak, a company known for its Dropbox-like online storage and synchronization service. SpiderOak differentiates itself by encrypting data in a such a way that none of its employees can access it, unlike Dropbox, where a few employees do have limited access to some kinds of data.
Crypton started out as an internal tool that SpiderOak needed for some of its other software projects, said CEO Ethan Oberman. The company wanted a way for data to be securely encrypted without the need for users to download a separate program.