Securing Docs

hi! i m having trouble now a days by the question how to protect my document when i want them in CD. I usually backup my personal data by writing it on CD but i live in hostel and people here are keen to explore other cd's, due to some reasons i can't hide my cd's here. More over i'll have to use a common pc and i can't install any software for encryption or security. Now in this situation all i want to know if there is any software or any method using which i could hide or protect my data WRITTEN ON CD without installing any software. Plz don't tell me how to hide a folder in its property tab. Hope for some serious and good response.

Well, you could zip the file and add a password to it, then also give it another extension.
This would work but zip passwords aren't extremely hard to crack...

Hi

Quote:

---

if there is any software or any method using which i could hide or protect my data WRITTEN ON CD without installing any software. Plz don't tell me how to hide a folder in its property tab. Hope for some serious and good response.

---

1. Yes there is plenty of software that will let you protect the contents of a CD but you say you don't want to install software. Does this mean that you will be writing (burning) the CDs away from the hostel? What I am asking is would it be OK for you to load new software onto another machine and burn your CDs on that, provided that it did not require you to load anything onto the shared machine?

2. Will these be read only CDs, or will they be read/re-write? in other words will you be able to AND want to change the contents of the CD whilst you are using the shared machine?

3. If you are going to burn CDs in the hostel on the shared machine, what is the CD burning software and version?

I am sure that I can find a solution, but I need a little more information about the restrictions you are facing :)

Cheers

RAR and password is one way.
An alternative is:

http://www.pcguardiantechnologies.co...ROM/index.html

Well since you apparently can't install new stuff on the PC, you may have to rely on security through obscurity. It isn't a very good pratice, but may be what you need to use if someone wants to go through your stuff and look at the CD.

Basically, you will just rename all of your files to a different extension. Ie, instead of "diary.doc" rename it "diary.zip". Since WinZip can't open a Microsoft Word Document, they might just think the file was burned wrong. BUT, if they use Microsoft Word to open the "diary.zip" file, they can open it without any problems since it is really a Microsoft Word document. That is the bad part. BTW, if you absolutely have to go this route, here are some file extensions for various types of Zip files, since people usually know they contain other files inside of them. ".zip", ".rar", ".7z", ".tar", ".tar.bz".

As mentioned you may have to use WinZip to compress the files, and add a password to the archive. WinZip usually comes on many computers, so you can use that as other people have suggested.

One more idea is that if some of your files are Microsoft Word / Excel Documents, you can add a password to those files. Go to File > Save As. In the dialogue box, find a menu-like thing labeled "Tools", click it, and select "General Options." This page will let you set a password to open, and setting a password will keep casual people from opening them. Of course, Microsoft Word and Excel documents can still be cracked just like WinZip files, but since it takes at least some time if you use a good password it might be just enough to keep your stuff private.

Also there is some software that can be run without the normal installing of it. But I don't have any encryption software like that, that you can run without having the MS-DOS window clearly showing that you are running something that your probably shouldn't be... I hope nihil can help you better if you can give him a better insight into the situation.

Can u change your attribute to system and hidden. they cannot view any data even if they choose show hidden files and folder. hope it help

i use NERO CD burning V 6.0 in ordor to burn cd's. But i burn them only in private not on shared machine.
I don't want to use compression method like WINZIP bcaz if i zip some heavy file like *.DAT file, it took a lot of time.
I've an idea that making my cd autorun and forcing a software to run in autorun which hide or protects my specific files until i ask him to undo it. Hope u r getting my point. Is there any of such method available?

If it is a newer version of Word that you are working with (I know that Office XP has this). When you do a save as and click on Tools there is a Security Options. You can set a password to open and if you click on the Advance Button next to it you can select your encryption type. With some of the encryption types you can even encrypt the document properties. Make sure that you select a strong password when you save it.