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Prevent Blocks Basic Operations In Windows

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:30:05 +0000

Prevent is a little application for the Windows operating system that will block basic file operations while running. This can be useful for users who want to prevent that other users access and manipulate files on their computer system while they are away. This might not always be the perfect solution though as many users prefer to lock the computer system instead to prevent unauthorized access. Prevent however might make sense where access is allowed to the computer system, e.g. on a family computer.

Prevent will block the following operations while running on a computer system:

Stops Cut
Stops Paste
Stops Copy
Stops Delete
Stops Copy To
Stops Move to
Stops Send To
Prevents renaming
Disables Task Manager’s End Process button.

Users who work with the computer system while Prevent is running will not be able to copy and paste information or copy, delete, rename or move files on the system. A hotkey is available to stop the Prevent program from running so that the operations become available again. The system is obviously not fool proof. It is for example possible to use another program like Process Explorer to kill the process.

Prevent is available at the Windows Club website.

Protect Your Computer From Crazy Little Fingers

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:18:58 +0000

Children are attracted to computers. They love the blinking lights, the computer screen and the changes that happen on that screen. It does not take long before they realize that pushing buttons on the keyboard might have an effect on the computer screen. Adults usually do not think that something bad can happen if their children hammer on the keyboard but they sometimes find the kill combination that does something unexpected.

Crazy Little Fingers steps in and offers a rewarding experience for the child while keeping the computer data safe. It is a fully portable application that assigns images to keys on the computer keyboard disabling all other keys that are not assigned. If a child presses a key an image is displayed, the image can be anything as it is possible to exchange the default images with others.

This could make for some interesting experiences. It would be possible to create a set of A-Z and 1-0 images that show the letter or number and something that begins with them, say an apple for A, a bee for B and so on.

The author mentioned sounds in the introductory post but those do not seem to be implemented yet. It would be nice to be able to combine images and sound so that pressing a key would display an image and play a sound at the same time.

There is one key combination to get you out of the state. Pressing [CTRL ALT DEL] will remove the lock and disable the application.

We have covered a similar application before: Toddler Trap suppresses the keyboard and mouse when activated. This is not that rewarding for the kid however.

True Crypt 6.1 Released

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:47:03 +0000

One of the very first articles that was published here at Ghacks was an article about securing a computer with True Crypt. The True Crypt developers have made several interesting changes both to the functionality of the hard drive encryption software but also to the speed and performance of it.

Version 6.1 of True Crypt was released two days ago and it has – again – added interesting features to the encryption software. The major improvement of this release affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems. It is now possible to encrypt non system partitions on those operating systems without losing the data on those partitions. That feature is unfortunately not available in previous operating systems such as Windows XP.

To encrypt a non-system partition and retain the data of the partition one would have to follow the path
Create Volume’ > ‘Encrypt a non-system partition’ > ‘Standard volume’ > ‘Select Device’ > ‘Encrypt partition in place’ in True Crypt.

Another interesting addition is the support of keyfiles on security tokens and smart cards that comply with the PKCS #11 standard. Text output of the True Crypt bootloader can now be suppressed or customized.

A complete list of changes and updates is available in the True Crypt release notes on the True Crypt homepage.