Hiding files

E

ezdezines

Registered
Hi gang, I'm new to this forum so first and foremost I'd like to say Hello. Now that I've formally introduced myself ;) , here's my question.

I have a friend who asked me this, and I'm curious myself .... "Someone had once told me that there is a way to store confidential files on a Mac harddrive. For instance, I have some files/images that I want to store on the hard drive but don't want it to be displayed as a file when I'm viewing the hard drive space. Do you know if this can be done?"

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
There are a few UNIX tricks that you might use to hide files from view.
The first is to rename the folder with a "dot" so it reads .folder, which you would have to do in the terminal using the mv command. The folder will not show in the finder, but you will be able to open it if you know it's name by selecting Go to folder.... and entering the name.
You can also prevent a user from viewing a folder's contents by setting the access rights in the "Show Info" --> "Privileges" for that folder, or alternatively from the command line. This won't hide the folder, but it will make it impossible for users to open it and view the contents without changing these settings.

If you want some real security, and a seperate password to protect the file, then use the "Disk Copy" utility to create a new blank image. Select AES-128 encryption and set a password.
This creates a DMG file. Double clicking this file mounts it as a drive on your desktop, allowing you to put files there just like you would for any other drive. When you eject it, your data is all safely locked away in the DMG file. To access it, double click the file and enter the password to mount it again.

There are a lot of other tricks you can try, some easy, some complex.
 
Mac OS X Panther, which is 10.3, has a feature called File Vault which stores your entire Home folder in a disk image and encrypts it, allowing only that user to access the image.

Do you happen to use a Mac yourself?
 
FileVault will be great when Apple fixes it, but I wouldn't use it until Apple fixes it. This is from MacFixIt;

Data loss— especiallywith user settings and Keychain data - can occurr when using FileVault's "reclaim disk space" feature.

Alex Johnson writes "Behavior includes a complete reset of Finder preferences - including Dock, default icon and column views, empty Trash warning, etc. - to the 'out-of-the-box' settings. Also corruption of the iTunes Database, iCal calendars, Keychain preferences, .dmg files reporting errors and images not mounting.

"The best guess is that this is caused by using FileVault, and allowing it to reclaim unused space. This is not a one-time problem - changes to preferences do not 'stick' while FileVault is on, whether or not unused space is reclaimed. Users - including myself - have found that this problem disappears if FileVault is turned off, which is what we have done - though this can take more than one try to accomplish; FileVault reported an error the first time I tried (no additional data was lost). On the second attempt I managed to turn FileVault off and my system is now working perfectly. This is an annoying bug to be sure, but the combination of encryption and a loss of data is a also worrying one."

Generally the FileVault "recovery" message will appear at logout. You can simply choose not to recover the disk space, until it is determined why File Vault is erasing these settings.
 
Thanks a ton for the suggestions. I will certainly try them out myself, and pass them on to my curious friend.

Yes, I am a Die-Hard Mac user (running a Dual-1G G4 on OS 10.2.8), but I'm still adjusting to the in's and out's of the OS X operating system. I have a pretty good grasp on the overall workings of it, but I haven't yet tapped into UNIX and working with command line. From what I've read and heard from others, it seems to be pretty powerful, I just haven't had a chance to experiment with it as work keeps me pretty busy.
 
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