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Hiding Things From Other Windows Users

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This Tutorial is for newbies.

 

How to hide porn from your parents.

 

This will also work with hiding your hacking files or anything else you want to keep to yourself.

 

note: this will not keep fbi/police/anyone who knows computers really good from finding your files, only  computer illiterate people and people who aren't really looking for incriminating files on your computer.

 

Hiding The Files/Directories:

 

1) hide directories

2) encrypted directories

3) CDs and floppies

Hiding The Evidence:

1) browser history

2) cookies

3) tmp files

4) windows history (start->documents)

 

Ok, let me first start off with why you would want to do this. You live at home with your parents and your  brothers and sisters. They all use the computer every once and awhile, but you use it all day. You do a  few things on it that you would rather keep any of them from knowing about. ex. pornography or hacking.  I'll try to share some knowledge I've gained on keeping things secret from people on windows 98, I don't  know if this will work with any other versions of windows (most likely they will). I will keep this very short  and to the point, there are tons of little details that I could get into, but it would be a waste of everyone's  time. Just think to yourself how to keep them more secret and you'll be more productive than reading 40  pages by me telling you not to write down the location of your files on a post-it by the monitor.

 

I've decided to break this tutorial down into 2 main catigories. Hiding Files And Directories is the first, and  Hiding The Evidence is the second. If you know of any more techniques please email me at  b0iler@hotmail.com

 

Hiding Files And Directories

 

Hiding Directories

This is a key point in keeping your things secret from the other users. You should try to make the files  and directories seem as if they are not even there. Hopfully the other users will never even find the  directory. The first thing to do is to find a place where the other users of the computer would not likely  look. I would suggest something in C:\windows since many regular computer users never go into this  directory, so they would be less likely to find it. I picked C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSAABAK. Now make  several directories named like: 01q1 01p2 01u3 01w5 01y3 04x2 .. the more you create the more likely  the other users will not look in the one you use to keep your hidden stuff***. You can also make subdirectories in each of these if you really want to make it hard for other users to find it. Create a few  dummy files in there to make it look like they are being used.

 

Now you need to create the actuall hidden directory by using an old ms-dos technique. Create a normal  directory in explorer and right click on it and select properties, under attributes select hidden. Now you  need to make this directory unaccessable from windows by going to start->programs->ms-dos and then  cd to where you put the directory. once there type: rename and the name of the directory you created,  then press alt+255 (using the number buttons on the right side, not the ones above the letters). and then  type in the name of your directory.

 

It should look like this:

rename dir dir

you will type this:

rename dir alt+255dir

 

What this does is renames the directory with alt+255 in front of it. With the alt+255 in the name it makes  the directory unaccessable from windows since windows cannot handle the alt+255 character. So you will  have to also make the directory hidden by going to view->folder options..->view->under hidden files  select "do not show hidden files".

 

So from now on you will need to move all your sensitive files into that directory from a dos prompt. To  move them do:

 

move c:\path\to\file.txt c:\path\to\alt+255dir

 

Microsoft has alittle better way of hiding files than this alt+255 trick. go to a dos prompt and type: cd  \windows\tempor~1 then dir see nothing? try cd content.ie5 oh my, completely hidden. They've got some  directories so hidden that you can't even get to them with a dos prompt from within windows.. you need  to reboot into actual dos to get to them. (I got this from a really good paper at:

 

http://www.fuckmicrosoft.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml)

 

Although I don't know how/if you can create hidden directories yourself. I guess you could hide your files  in

c:\windows\tempor~1\content.ie5 =)

 

Encrypting Files

Alright, this is a key.. although getting your directories encrypted isn't as easy in windows as it is in linux  it still is fairly seemless. I would suggest downloading a program called Mooseoft Encrypter - why this  program? Because it's freeware, it's simple to use, it works very well, and it can encrypt/decrypt multiple  files at once. It comes with a really good help file, so if you have any problems with it just look there.  Infact, if you encrypt your files with it, using a password no one will ever guess .. I see little reason to use  the alt+255 method =) But if you still want to be 100% secure I would use both methods.

 

100% Hidden Files (using removable storage)

ok, this is by far the best method to use, and it's fairly easy to do. Simply get a floppy, put it in your  computer and put the files you want hidden on it. That's it. Now hide the floppy so no one finds it. Putting  crappy decoy files mixed in with the real ones will help just incase someone does find the floppy and checks to see what's on it. And don't name your files porn1.jpg hackinghowto.txt sex.gif. Make sure to  label it something like 'school work #3' so maybe your parents will ignore it. Don't name it 'video games'  or anything like that if you have brothers or sisters living with you.. that's just asking for them to check it out. any other form of removable media would work aswell, zip disks, cdrw, tape drives.. anything.

 

Hiding The Evidence

 

Deleting The History In IE

Doing this will help keep what your up to online much more secret. After being asked what I was doing on  www.hack.co.za a few times by roomates I decided to start deleting the history of ie. This is very simple,  you can ether delete everything in history, or only the sites you want. To delete everything:

 

go to tools->internet options...->delete cookies and delete files

 

To delete only the sites you want click on the history button (it's got a sundial on it) and right click on any  of the sites you want to delete, then select delete.

 

(go over how to make a .bat file that will delete the history

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ TypedURLs)

 

tmp Files

tmp files are created by programs while you run windows. The normal location for these files is  C:\windows\temp but also check C:\temp C:\tmp C:windows\tmp.

 

Deleting Form Field History

You know how if you have autocomplete on with ie and you start to type in a form field that has the same  name as one you have filled out before how it pops up a drop down menu with all the previous values you  have put in that form? This can be pretty bad when your parents go to google.com and see that you have  been searching for

 

hacking

cracking tutorials

porn

big boobs

how to steal your parents credit card

 

So you need to delete this history whenever you search for something you shouldn't. You should first turn  off auto complete (it's in internetproperties/content.) then delete the history file by (tell them how.) if I  can't find out how tell them to go one by one and delete them :/

 

Since I have no other place to put this I'll just throw it in here. 0perations gave me a this great tip when  hiding my evidence of files. Lets say you want to watch a video, XXXpornogirls.mpg. Now instead of just  clicking on it and viewing it rename it to windemo.mpg or something bland like that. Since most movie players keep a kind of history of the last videos you viewed this will defeat that. Also if you rename the  file and put it in a different directory after you view it other users will have no clue what it was.

 

Deleting Recently Viewed Documents

Whenever you open a file that windows sees as a document it is put in a list. To view this list go to start- >documents since this is such an open place other computer users will often see it. You don't want  xxxSEXpic01.jpg showing up on there. So lets get rid of that list. right click on the toolbar at the bottom  of windows. Right next to your minimized applications. select properties->start menu programs->under  the document's menu press the clear button and then ok. The list will be empty now =)

 

Want to just get rid of that folder? go to start->run-> type in regedit Then go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

and change NoRecentDocsMenu's REG_DWORD to 1. If it's 0 that means it will display it, 1 will not. if u  dont find it than create a new binary value on tht right hand side and do the same process as above.

 

I like to just clear it when I leave windows, to do this open up regedit and go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

and change ClearRecentDocsOnExit's REG_DWORD to 1. If it's 0 it will be disabled, 1 will be enabled

 

Credits

 

by

Pradeep

rockystone@rediffmail.com

www.completehack.focusindia.com 

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