gHacks technology news » protect files http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Password Protect Programs http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/11/password-protect-programs/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/11/password-protect-programs/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:31:02 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=16196 windows softwareIt might be necessary to password protect programs – and other files – if other people have access to a computer system. This can be true for families who share one computer system but also in dorms and even for businesses. The password protection should ensure that a certain program is not executed on a computer system without supplying the password first. This can be to protect certain programs from being executed while not at the computer system, e.g. limiting access to World of Warcraft, Internet browsers, other games or executables.

Desklock is a simple application for the Windows operating system that can be used to password protect programs. It places an icon in the system tray after startup which can be right-click to open a context menu with option to configure the programs that should be password protected. The default password to access the settings and password protected programs is 2.

password protect programs

The main menu with all password protected programs will be displayed after entering the right password in the form. The same password prompt will be displayed if a user tries to open a protected program.

password protection

Additional options can be configured for each program including hotkeys, transparency and to hide the program icon when the program gets minimized by the user. How safe is the password protection? Desklock appears in the Windows Task Manager from where it can be killed easily with the appropriate rights. Terminating the process would enable access to all password protected files. It is therefor recommended to install this software on limited user accounts that do not have admin rights to kill processes.

Desklock is available at the developer’s website.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/11/password-protect-programs/feed/ 7 Password Protect Files http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/11/password-protect-files/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/11/password-protect-files/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:06:52 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10477 The Windows operating system does not ship with a program that can be used to password protect files easily. There are on the other hand several reasons why someone would want to password protect files. This can be to protect children by preventing their access to certain applications or files, protecting files in case they get lost and basically any kind of files that should not be opened by unauthorized users.

Androsa FileProtector is a software to password protect files in the Windows operating system. It can be downloaded as a portable version or one that has to be installed on the computer system. Three different encryption algorithms can be selected to password protect the files including 256 bit AES encryption.

Using the software program is actually pretty straightforward. Files can be added by the file browser. The files that have been added can then be password protected in the next step. The FileProtector will then encrypt the selected files and change their file extension to .afp. That file extension is automatically assigned to the software if it was installed on the computer system. Portable users will have to assign it or select the program from a list if they want to decrypt protected files.

password protect files

The software can also delete files securely by overwriting them a number of times. This is an important step as the original files will be deleted after the encrypted copy has been created. Androsa FileProtector will display a password prompt if the file is executed on the computer system.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/11/password-protect-files/feed/ 4 Encrypting USB Devices Data With True Crypt http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/14/encrypting-usb-devices-data-with-true-crypt/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/14/encrypting-usb-devices-data-with-true-crypt/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:52:57 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=9001 If you do not want to end like British government officials who lose USB devices with unencrypted data in front of pubs you might want to consider encrypting the data so that it cannot be recovered if the USB device would be lost. It is not entirely true that the data cannot be recovered but if you choose a long password and make sure to pick a safe encryption algorithm then you are on the protected side for now as it would take years to brute force the password.

True Crypt is an Open-Source software that can be used to create encrypted containers on devices. One of the major advantages of True Crypt is that it can be used as a portable application which means that you can copy the True Crypt files on the USB device so that the software does not have to be installed on the computer system where the data is needed.

There is however the requirement that the user who wants to mount the True Crypt volume to get access to the data needs to have administrative rights to run the software. That is however the only requirement.

Download the True Crypt software and run the setup. The setup displays options to install or extract the contents. Choose the extract option and pick the USB device as the target. All the files needed to encrypt and decrypt data will be extracted to the USB device.

Run truecrypt.exe afterwards. We need to create an encrypted container on the USB device that can store the data that we want to protect. It is limited to the free space on the USB device.

Click on Create Volume in the main interface and select the option to create an encrypted file container. Use the standard volume type in the next screen. Now browse to the USB device and pick a random filename that should be used as the container. You can use any name or extension, it does not really matter, for example test.avi, test.txt or bigrar.rar.

Pick an encryption algorithm (AES is fine and fast) and a Hash Algorithm (SJA-512) and define the space on the device that you want to assign. Select a password (20+ chars are recommended, the more the securer). The volume (in this case the space that you have selected) will be formatted. Move the mouse around to create random information and click the format button in the end.

true crypt format

This completes the creation of the encrypted container on the device. You need to mount it whenever you are going to use it. This is done by executing True Crypt from the USB device, picking a drive letter and selecting the file that contains the encrypted container.

true crypt

The last step would be to click on mount to enter the password that is needed for the data decryption.

true crypt mount

The data will be secure whenever the container is not mounted on the computer system. That’s one of the safest ways of transporting data from location A to B. Got any questions? Let me know.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/14/encrypting-usb-devices-data-with-true-crypt/feed/ 5 Protect Games With Passwords http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/protect-games-with-passwords/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/protect-games-with-passwords/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:27:43 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8537 Sharing a computer with children can be a great way for them to get started early on. It does however raise a few concerns that have to be addressed. One area of concern are games. Everyone can play games on a computer if they are installed on it. Sure, there are the parental controls in Windows but most parents don’t know about this feature or feel that it is to complicated to setup.

Game Protector could be the solution here. (There are many others like creating separate user profiles for example). The application can password protect any executable that you select. While it is called Game Protector it can virtually protect any other executable as well. Usage is simple and straightforward.

The user browses to the folder the executable is in and selects it in the file browser. He then enters the password to protect the file from users who do not have the password. It is also possible to change the icon of the executable and to rename it.

game protector

A click on Protect will protect the executable with the password. The main interface contains options to create a backup first and to unprotect an executable again.

A password box is displayed whenever a protected executable is launched. Entering the password will start the executable normally while a false password will simply display the form again. One advantage of this service is that Game Protector does not have to be running in the background to protect the executable.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/protect-games-with-passwords/feed/ 4 Protect Files in Windows by locking them http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/21/protect-files-in-windows-by-locking-them/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/21/protect-files-in-windows-by-locking-them/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:20:53 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/21/protect-files-in-windows-by-locking-them/ We all have files on our system that are valuable to us and that we do not want to lose. This could be everything from Word documents to images or mp3 files. But there is still the chance that those files do get deleted, either by chance, by another user or by malicious software. The result is the same in the end, we frantically try to recover the file on the hard drive and pray that we have created backups that contain it.

Fslock is a simple but secure file protector that protects files from being moved, renamed, deleted, loaded and edited by normal means as long as the process is running. All types of files can be added except for executable and dynamic link libraries (exe and dll). The program should be started with Windows to take full advantage of it.

While the security software definitely protects the files from being accidentally manipulated it does not provide a good enough protection if someone really wants to access the files. Files are of course still available if you boot another operating system or load them before Windows starts.

protect files

It is possible to simply kill the Fslock process to be able to access the files again or use a software like Unlocker to free the file from being in use. I guess that limits the use of this software. Could probably be great if you want to protect files from your kids or from malicious software.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/21/protect-files-in-windows-by-locking-them/feed/ 6 Protect your important files against corruption http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/05/protect-your-important-files-against-corruption/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/05/protect-your-important-files-against-corruption/#comments Sat, 05 May 2007 21:39:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/05/05/protect-your-important-files-against-corruption/ Files do not last forever. Corruption can be caused by hard drive failures or unreadable compact disks for instance. The files might be partially readable but this does not help much if it is corrupted. There are some ways of preparing yourself against data loss. One obvious way is of course to make regular backups of your important files. But it could of course happen that backups get corrupted as well which most of the time happens in the worst moments possible.

A software that is able to protect your important files against corruption is called ICE ECC which creates so called recovery files that can be used to recover files that are corrupted or partially damaged. They can’t recover files that are not there anymore of course but most of the time you have partial files that can be recovered. This is a like the Par2 file system which I have written about earlier in this week.

ICE ECC offers some advantages over Par2 files. First it is possible to create recovery files for directories with no limitation on file size, amount of files and names. The recovery files themselves are compressed to make it easier to store them on your system. Last but not least some tests that have been published on the developers website claim that ICE ECC is a lot faster than Quickpar for instance. I do not think that this is such an important factor after all unless you create recovery files every day.

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