Discussion
dNot really. You could create another user if you're on 2000/XP/2003/Vista with an NTFS filesystem and only allow permission to that user (you'd have to login as them, but as it's mydocuments; you'd have to give them access to your mydocs folder).
Or you could try some encryption software but I wouldn't bother.
Just hide your porn on a DVD.
Or you could try some encryption software but I wouldn't bother.
Just hide your porn on a DVD.
Surely there's opensource software, even on Windows, to do this. All you'd need is a known, reasonably secure algorithm and a hook into the filesystem to encrypt/decrypt data underneath the system calls to open and read files. Since Windows seems to have a fairly extensible Explorer (plenty of third party apps, like WinZip, etc. can add custom actions to the file manager) it'd make sense to put the 'encrypt this' and password entry functionality in there.
Can't see how that'd be hard on a folder-by-folder basis. OS X can do your entire user folder, for example (rather than the entire disk). The only snag would be that the system hook code would have to interact with the logged-in user and present a password dialogue when the encrypted folder is accessed...
Just thinkin'
The way I do things like this on OS X is to create a sparse disk image and encrypt that. These are single files that can be opened just like a DVD - once you've mounted the disk image, you can use it like any other disk or folder (including subfolders, etc.). Unmount it and it's just a single file which can be moved around. You need a password in order to mount the disk image.
Surely something like this for Windows? Even WinZip can do a password-protected zipfile at the least....
Can't see how that'd be hard on a folder-by-folder basis. OS X can do your entire user folder, for example (rather than the entire disk). The only snag would be that the system hook code would have to interact with the logged-in user and present a password dialogue when the encrypted folder is accessed...
Just thinkin'
The way I do things like this on OS X is to create a sparse disk image and encrypt that. These are single files that can be opened just like a DVD - once you've mounted the disk image, you can use it like any other disk or folder (including subfolders, etc.). Unmount it and it's just a single file which can be moved around. You need a password in order to mount the disk image.
Surely something like this for Windows? Even WinZip can do a password-protected zipfile at the least....
just use truecrypt... create a drive letter that only appears when you need it.
I use an icon with the properties
"C:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe" /m rm /q /lS /v c:\DATA.truecrypt.tc
to open up an S: drive with my data on it when I need it (or put it in the startup folder).
If pc gets nicked, the data "drive" is not readable without the password.
NOTE: If you use Windows Home Server you should use the "/M rm" switches as above - this marks the drive as removeable and WHS doesnt try and backup the drive. It IS however backed up as an encrypted file called c:\DATA.truecrypt.tc !
HTH
Tony
I use an icon with the properties
"C:\Program Files\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe" /m rm /q /lS /v c:\DATA.truecrypt.tc
to open up an S: drive with my data on it when I need it (or put it in the startup folder).
If pc gets nicked, the data "drive" is not readable without the password.
NOTE: If you use Windows Home Server you should use the "/M rm" switches as above - this marks the drive as removeable and WHS doesnt try and backup the drive. It IS however backed up as an encrypted file called c:\DATA.truecrypt.tc !
HTH
Tony
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