Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:48320 alt.msdos.programmer:1478 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!bionet!ames!amelia!roelofs From: roelofs@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Ender Wiggin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,alt.msdos.programmer Subject: Re: Hiding/Protecting Directories Keywords: Directories,hiding,protection Message-ID: <5575@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> Date: 11 Apr 90 05:40:58 GMT References: Reply-To: roelofs@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Ender Wiggin) Distribution: na Organization: University of Chicago, more or less Lines: 44 In article deen@topaz.rutgers.edu (Cinnamon Raisin) writes: > > Does anyone know of a way of passowrd protecting a directory and >it's contents? I can't think of an easy way to password-protect a directory (short of writing a TSR to intercept DOS "del" commands or disk accesses), but I do know of several ways to make it hard to find. Putting the directory several levels deep in the directory tree (preferably under an existing directory and/or subdirectory(s)) is a good start; moving the directory name near the top of the directory listing (with, e.g., Norton's DS program) and changing its date to something similar to the other files (with a utility such as FDATE.COM) would be a start. Adding an extension to the directory name is always a fun one, too. Best of all, however, is using some of the upper-level ASCII characters in the name, ideally with at least one invisible one (e.g. ASCII 255). I'm pretty sure DOS allows that one, and I think most of the others as well; I know the centered dots (254? 250?) are allowed because I've used them in diskette labels before. Thus you could name your directory something like DATA<.>< >.< > where <.> represents one of the centered dots/bullets and < > is ASCII 255. A casual perusal of the parent directory would then list something like DATA. 25-JUN-1988 OTHERFIL ES 24564 30-OCT-1988 ETC 16-JUN-1988 (or however DOS lists directory entries; I can't remember), but doing a "dir data\*.*" would result in a "directory not found" error or something like that. So would "del data"; and, of course, "del data*.*" only looks for regular files under DOS. These characters can be entered with ALT and the numeric keypad, in case you've forgotten. Hope this helps. Of course, now that millions of users worldwide have just read all this, it's not much of a secret anymore, eh? :) Greg Physics geek from hell