A. You could set up an remote email account and throw away the key.
Put a crazy password on gmail (or any email service that you expect to still be in business when the time comes). Get it to send you a cryptographic key or to send you the password at a time that is programmed in the future.
Then you throw away the gmail password. No 2 factor authentication, no way of getting back in. The problem is that you have to rely on gmail.
Future mail: gmail calendar, lettermelater...
http://www.tothepc.com/archives/ways-to-send-future-email-gmail-outlook-tools/
If it's under your control, you can "hack" the time.
The problem with a windows or local solution is that you can change the time or fake an ntp server. Anything that reboots either has to be told the time or can be updated with new time info.
So somebody else would have to run the clock. Having and external service to send you a message at a certain time is the answer I believe. The important thing is being sure that that external service is reliable and redundant when the time comes so that you don't lose the info forever.
Redundant could mean having two or more files with the data, with two different passwords, on 2 different hard drives, with two different remote email services from 2 different companies.... Basically doing your setup twice in 2 completely independent ways with no single point of failure.
Encryption
Encryption has to do with security, not time.
Your question refers to a password. You can use a cryptographic key simply to increase the complexity and make so that it is not accessible via simple brute-force. That's beyond the subject and a bit complicated but it might interest you.
pitt.edu/~poole/PGP.htmago
You could encrypt your data with PGP encryption and send yourself the encryption key later. If security is a concern, using an encryption key rather than a long password would be preferable.
If you are using a password, then having 10 characters or more that are random and include symbols and caps would be a minimum, in my estimation. The more random characters in your password (the longer it is), the better as it makes it exponentially more difficult to brute-force.
Additional reference
Beyond that, the stackexchange page referenced by Sam3000 is worth mentioning.
It would be useful to know if this is Windows, Linux or Mac to answer for a platform specifically. – Sam3000 – 2016-04-22T21:18:45.397
Prefer windows, but could be android or Web app. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-04-22T21:19:51.763
Okay, I think the following link might be of interest to you, I'm not sure if there is a reliable way to do this, but I will be intrigued to see if anyone can offer an answer - The link: http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3064/is-it-possible-to-make-time-locked-encrytion-algorithm
– Sam3000 – 2016-04-22T21:25:34.760Oh man, I hope it isn't that complicated! – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-04-22T21:34:18.983
Might I ask for a few more specifics about why you would like to time lock the file, perhaps I can suggest a viable alternative? – Sam3000 – 2016-04-22T21:59:01.873
I would like to prevent access to a password protected feature for a certain time. I would create a long random password that can't be remembered, put it in whatever time lock solution and access/grant access to it at the later time, when the solution would provide the password to myself or whoever else I would like. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-03T01:30:59.190
Does the time feature have to be automated? and assuming you want a long forgettable password that you can't remember i figure you want the application or whatever to remind you what the password is once x amount of time has ended? – RyanIG – 2016-06-03T15:48:32.730
exactly. I would like to be able to edit the time held for sure – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-03T15:50:18.220
I want to edit the time at the time I store. Once stored, uneditable. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-03T15:52:21.130
Seems to me like it would be easier to encrypt as usual, send it to storage and delete it, then send it back – Raystafarian – 2016-06-03T15:58:48.500
Do you need it to be 100% secure or would it be ok if it were discoverable if someone knew what they were looking for? – TheKB – 2016-06-03T16:52:54.320
No need to be 100 percent. As long as the average user couldn't hack it without at least a couple hours of research. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-03T18:07:54.467
The freeware [FileLocker][http://www.jensscheffler.de/filelocker] will lock a file for a certain number of milliseconds. – harrymc – 2016-06-03T21:21:00.553
Hmm . I get page not found at that address – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-03T21:28:19.393
Mistake - the right link is this.
– harrymc – 2016-06-04T17:11:56.5331
I hacked up some batch files. The pastes are Here and here. Name them like they are named in pastebin. This generates a 40 character password, shows it to you to encrypt your file in whatever way you prefer. It then sets up a fake
– TheKB – 2016-06-06T18:30:23.770Adobe Update
Task for a time you specify and shows you the passcode after that time and then deletes it.@TheKB -- neat idea, but this won't meet the requirement of
I want to edit the time at the time I store. Once stored, uneditable
, Nor is it a particularly secure way of storing the passcode. – Jedi – 2016-06-06T18:38:48.980@Jedi True, but my batch skills are super bad so it was the best I could do. All he needs is
As long as the average user couldn't hack it without at least a couple hours of research.
. I'll look into actually calling an encryption software in the batch file. – TheKB – 2016-06-06T19:30:32.947@Jedi I have updated my batch files to encrypt the file with aes first. This time drop the command-line version of aescrypt along with the new pastes here and here. Any suggestions?
– TheKB – 2016-06-06T20:37:51.883That's a cool script @TheKB. Well, the security of the implementation depends on the batch file being run only at the specified time. However, this is easy to tamper with and bypass. @BloodyEl's answer seems more apt, though it introduces dependencies on external systems.
– Jedi – 2016-06-06T20:47:19.033@TheKB, please include this as an answer. I like. Don't worry about encryption--though someone else may find it useful. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-07T02:20:03.957
Can you clarify a few things: 1) Do you want to lock a file on your computer or some number of users? 2) Do you want to prevent you accessing it or the average user? 3) What kind of time span do you want? Minutes, Hours, Days? – Engineer Toast – 2016-06-07T13:10:14.593
I really want to just have away to lock up an app for personal productivity purposes until a certain time or day ( ex. No fb until project is complete) . There are locking apps, but they lack the functionality this will provide. – Flotsam N. Jetsam – 2016-06-09T02:48:42.620