Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!simon
From: simon@ms.uky.edu (Simon Gales)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Protecting directories from peeping eyes (how???)
Keywords: PROTECT DIRECTORIES
Message-ID: <10681@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 88 04:58:27 GMT
References: <46@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU> <44916@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <2961@arcturus>
Reply-To: simon@ms.uky.edu (Simon Gales)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 45

In article <2961@arcturus> mitch@arcturus.UUCP (Mitchell S. Gorman) writes:
>
>	Ok, here's something I discovered while playing around with
>Norton Utilities.  It's got a lot of holes in it, and if you do this 
>and then run CHKDSK, you WILL lose whatever was stored in the 
>directory you are hiding, but here goes:
> 
  [ Stuff about setting Volume-Label bit on dir to be hidden ]
>
>	The danger with this method of hiding a directory is that the
>FAT must be treated very gingerly, else you'll lose the hidden 
>directory and all its files.  When you make a directory into a volume 
>label, the FAT still has the allocations for the hidden files, but a 
>program like CHKDSK will not be able to find the files that the FAT 
>says it knows about, and poof!  scads and scads of FILExxxx.CHK!!
>
>	Like I said, this is NOT something that anyone who's not on
>intimate terms with a program like NORTON should attempt.  If the files
>get munched, there is NO WAY to recover them that I wot of, and I don't
>want to hear from anyone who tried this!!!
>

Seems like chkdsk would recover all of the files intact, but with new
names (ie: file0000.chk ...).    When chkdsk looked at the FAT, it 
would see a lost chain for each file in the hidden directory, and would
recover each chain into its own new file (file0000.chk...).  I think 
this is how chkdsk works, if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will correct
me  :-?.

All that is left is to look into the files and restore their names.  
There will also be some lost clusters due to the clusters the directory
itself was stored in.

Of course, if you did all this, and then un-hid your directory and played
in it, you would be in it up to your ears.

Instead of hiding directories, why not stash your files in an encrypted
archive - you could even have your program call the archiver to do the
packing and unpacking.  (What are the legalities with using zoo this way?)

-- 
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