good app for folder password protection?

[cb911]

i just had a look on versiontracker for an app that will password protect folders and found two: FolderGuard X 2.5.1 & LameSecure 0.58. i read the reviews and it looks like LameSecure is the better of the two.

does anyone recommend other password protection apps? or does anyone know if you can put a password on an entire partition? that would be really useful...

 

[evildead]

invisable

those apps just make folders invisable... they are not really protected. In UNIX if you put a "." infront of a filename... it becomes invisable.. only visable at the terminal with the command

ls -a

you can still access it and even trash it if you have the right privleges. Now... if your not worried about UNIX geeks like me finding you logged in to your computer and you not arround... then they work just fine.

if your worred about other users... just make new accounts for them and log your self out when your not arround.... or use a password locking screen saver.

-evildead

 

[Tiauguinho]

I would love to have some kind of app that would lock some folders... When you double-click on a folder that was locked, it would ask for a password and if you have the right password the folder would open. If you aren't the owner of that folder you cannot trash it or move it around. Hmmm... I wonder if I can build something like this with project builder... do you guys know if this is possible? I know that I can control the read and write permissions, but how about locking a folder?

 

[cb911]

i'm using LameSecure now, and it doesn't really protect the folders... it just has some password, but you'd still need to be determined to break it.

it's not fully secure, for example i have a password on my folder that my 'Acquisiton' downloads go to, but if you go into Aquisition and click 'reveal' then it goes to that folder, even though it's protected by 'LameSecure'.

LameSecure only looks hard to crack, but that's all i want, and i use the password protected screensaver as well.

but if anyone knows how to password protect a whole partition, that's something i would really like to know...

evildead, if i wanted to make a partition invisible could i put a '.' in fornt of it the same as a folder? and to make it visible again i just type '-a' right? i might try that out...

 

[evildead]

partions

Unfortunatly... OS X mounts partitions the same way it mounts them in OS 9. When you log in.. the partitions are mounted in a directory called /Volumes. Any user that logs in becomes the owner of that partion at mount time... so permisions dont work on keeping people out. If OS X mounted partions the same way Solaris did it... it would be simple to keep people out.

As for putting a .dot infront of a partition... OS X doesnt let you do it.. it give you an error... unless your root...

I gave it a try... but my drive didnt come off the desktop... so Im not sure.

You may want to look into file encription if you really want to protect files. StuffIt Delux can compress files and encript them with a password to get in... but if its a big file... it might take some time to do it.

The wimpy security tools your using are fine... as long as there are no UNIX geeks arround

 

[cb911]

what about using disk copy to unmount a partition, then mounting it when i need it? is it possible to set disk copy to need the administrator password before mounting partitions?

anyway, i'll just keep using LameSecure and hope that UNIX know-alls like you stay over there on the WestCoast of USA.

 

[sparkleytone]

just change the permissions in the terminal using chmod. make sure that you have read/write/exec access for the owner of the directory.

remember, or learn, that the UNIX philosophy of file management is in effect here. the fact that you are dealing with a partition is irrelevant. to the OS, its just another directory. you have told the OS to mount the partition with the mount point of the directory. change the permissions of the directory and anyone without permissions just plain cannot see inside of it.

for clarification, if you want to be able to have file access in a directory without being able to browse...just turn off execute permission (744). to be able to go into the directory but not have access to the files turn off read permission (711). if you want no access and no browsing turn them both off (700). note that all of my suggestions have write capability disabled as well.

 

[zimv20]

Originally posted by sparkleytone
just change the permissions in the terminal using chmod.

this of course will protect against users w/ other ids. but i often have friends over who just need to check their email or somesuch. i let them use my account and don't bother making them reboot to a guest account (that seems rude to me)

now, i trust my friends, but it'd be cool to have certain folders password protected even from my own id. you'll agree that chmod doesn't apply here, because it's still my id that's being used.

 

[demonx]

Originally posted by Tiauguinho
I would love to have some kind of app that would lock some folders... When you double-click on a folder that was locked, it would ask for a password and if you have the right password the folder would open. If you aren't the owner of that folder you cannot trash it or move it around. Hmmm... I wonder if I can build something like this with project builder... do you guys know if this is possible? I know that I can control the read and write permissions, but how about locking a folder?

I agree, I actually would have thought OSX with have a feature like this. But I guess not everything can be perfect