Employee Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Very simple tutorial for windows. First, create a folder than right click on it, and go down to rename. Now hold down Alt and press 0160 on the numpad. Now the name will look like nothing. Second, right click on the folder and go down to properties, go to the customize tab and click on "Change Icon..." now click on one that has no icon and hit ok and whew whoo you have an invisible folder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Alt+255 also works as an invisible character Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Why on earth would I want a folder which I can't see. People are going to find it by either accidently highlighting in when drawing a box over it, or working in command line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Yeah it is pointless really... in Explorer it appears as a highlighable 'nothing' and it just looks like something you would want to investigate and on the desktop it would be found easily by highlighting all icons. If you want a folder that most regular computer users won't find, just create a folder, set the 'hidden' attribute and turn off 'Show All Files and Folders'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 The only truely hidden folder/partition, would be a hidden volume within a truecrypt volume. Nobody will every be able to say that it is there and they will never find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melodic Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 The only truely hidden folder/partition, would be a hidden volume within a truecrypt volume.Nobody will every be able to say that it is there and they will never find it. can you encrypt a usb stick? so when you plug it in and access the drive, you have to enter a password to see the data? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 can you encrypt a usb stick? so when you plug it in and access the drive, you have to enter a password to see the data? As far as I know, you can get some USB sticks that come with a similar feature. As an example: http://www.card-media.co.uk/usbflashdrive.htm I've seen one that has a finger print scanner on it too. And as another example: http://www.card-media.co.uk/resellers/biodisk+usb2.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 an you encrypt a usb stick? so when you plug it in and access the drive, you have to enter a password to see the data? You can encrypt anything which has storage. It doesn't matter about the media, except for write-once optical discs, which you need to create a encrypted file and then write to the disc. Also if you do this make sure that the encrypted file is formated in Fat32 and not NTFS as windows won't allow you to mount a read-only NTFS partition. Bsically you either have a file that contains the encrypted data and you mount that, or you can have actual partitions which don't appear in your OS until you mount them with the program to unencrypt them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0gic Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 If you need to hide something in a hurry and don't any crypto software readily available, NTFS Alternate Data Streams are your friend. http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Alt...ta_Streams.html http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/altds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 But it useless in Linux, plus theres no point hiding something in a hurry if its only going to be found and read easily. If you have your crypto set up properly then it will be quicker. If you have the item your working on in your crypto folder already which is likely, they if someone comes in then all you have to do is dismount it. The whole partition disappears. Then if say it was the police and they demand the passkey for the encrypted file because they know its encrypted (not hard to find out) then you can give them the first one, have something worth encrypting in there, like your Tax Returns, and they will never be able to find the hidden volume with all the juciy stuff in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Then if say it was the police and they demand the passkey for the encrypted file because they know its encrypted (not hard to find out) then you can give them the first one, have something worth encrypting in there, like your Tax Returns, and they will never be able to find the hidden volume with all the juciy stuff in it. I think if I were to be involved in anything the police would want me for, I would invest in a RAM disk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 I think if I were to be involved in anything the police would want me for, I would invest in a RAM disk Wink You can gain quite a lot of information from RAM now, forensic experts now often take images of the RAM with special machines that they plug it into and it can retrive almost all of the data which was in the RAM at the last point, even if the machine has been turned off. But seriously, what is the point of having your data so you can delete it at a moments notice. With Hidden Volumes, they will never ever ever be able to find it and prove that it is there in a court of law. Plus with using a passkey and a passfile (it generates part of the key from a hash of the file you choose) they are never going to break it. Say you have a 21 character password which is not unreasonable, you can then supplement it with rediculous numbers of characters from a passfile which only you know which one it is. Say that they find you passfile some how, they still can't break the encryption because they still need to find the passkey. And all this is in the event that they can actually find your hidden volume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roo-boy Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 yeah trucrypt is way to go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 You can gain quite a lot of information from RAM now, forensic experts now often take images of the RAM with special machines that they plug it into and it can retrive almost all of the data which was in the RAM at the last point, even if the machine has been turned off. And I thought that RAM was volatile, disappearing when the power's turned off! Say you have a 21 character password which is not unreasonable, you can then supplement it with rediculous numbers of characters from a passfile which only you know which one it is.Say that they find you passfile some how, they still can't break the encryption because they still need to find the passkey. And all this is in the event that they can actually find your hidden volume. If they did find the hidden volume and you refused to divulge the key to reveal the data, couldn't they charge you with "obstruction"? Alternatively, couldn't they assume that you were guilty, just as they would if you refused to provide a blood or urine sample in the case of a drink/driving offence? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 If they did find the hidden volume and you refused to divulge the key to reveal the data, couldn't they charge you with "obstruction"? Alternatively, couldn't they assume that you were guilty, just as they would if you refused to provide a blood or urine sample in the case of a drink/driving offence? They can't find the hidden folder, there is no known method of finding it because its encrypted data inside an already encrypted partition. And when you encrypt something all the space that is left is turned into gibberish, so you can't tell gibberish from gibberish. They might be able to guess that you have a hidden folder, but no prove means no conviction. Also they can't assume that you are guilty. Innocent until proven guilty. Remember it is a jury that dicides your fate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
degoba Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 This is great for hiding things like um.... pr0n? especially if you girlfriend is looking for it. I have dual monitors so i just leave the folder in the top left hand corner and hope she doesnt start dragging the mouse around. Even better yet. how about hidden folders within hidden folder within hidden folders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Even better yet. how about hidden folders within hidden folder within hidden folders Err, how about no? Your screwed once someone has found one of them because then they will be looking for the rest. O look, i've stumpled across a invisible folder and theres nothing in this one, o wait, lets look for another invisible folder. Wow, thats a coincidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Your best option is to encypte the directory, and rename the file to some thing like "Bank Information". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Store things in a virtual Acorn Archimedes disk... No one will ever go in there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Nah... encode all your private data into JPEGs called "gandmas holiday photos - Iowa state pork fair"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Alt+255 also works as an invisible character This worked in windows 9x. You could rename a folder in DOS to Alt+255 and in windows it would show up as a folder with no name. When you tried to open the folder in explorer it would give you an error message. The only way to open the folder in explorer was to drop to command.com, CD to the directory, and "start ." Doesn't work in NT based windows :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debianuser Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 well what about just using TrueCrypt - it's much more secure 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 well what about just using TrueCrypt - it's much more secure Cool You could just read the topic before posting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debianuser Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 well what about just using TrueCrypt - it's much more secure Cool You could just read the topic before posting? no offense, but what's the purpose of creating an invisible folder if it's not to hide something - so why not create a hidden volume :roll: ? :arrow: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 no offense, but what's the purpose of creating an invisible folder if it's not to hide something - so why not create a hidden volume Rolling Eyes ? You still haven't read the topic. I didn't mean that TrueCrypt wasn't the answer, it is, but it has been mentioned, and explained by me and a few people already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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