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jeviho

Member

Registered: 2024-03-09

Posts: 2

how to hidden files

Can you tell me what utilities there are that can hide files on machines, the effect is approximately the same when you put a dot at the beginning of the file, but I would be interested to know what utilities there are that can hide and properly encrypt files in addition

mpan

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Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,591

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Re: how to hidden files

Encryption and related articles.

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ptchinster

Member

Registered: 2008-12-27

Posts: 47

Re: how to hidden files

> Can you tell me what utilities there are that can hide files on machines, the effect is approximately the same when you put a dot at the beginning of the file, but I would be interested to know what utilities there are that can hide and properly encrypt files in addition

The dot before a filename isnt really a "hidden" file, its more "not displayed by default. Think of .bashrc or .vimrc, these are config files that 99% of the time you want to ignore. They are displayed with a simple flag like "-a" being passed to ls. They very much show up in any filesystem master table.

NTFS has "alternate data streams" or ADS. This is a common way to hide data, or store metadata (like mark of the web), but again these are displayed with a simple flag pass to window's 'dir' command.

Any forensic investigation will easily reveal ADS or hidden files with ease. A sysadmin or superuser also will easily be able to see these files. You are basically hiding them from grandma.

If you want to really hide a file, you want to look into a rootkit of some sort, but this would only impact running systems and not an offline investigation.

If you want to make some data unknown to others, encryption is what you are looking for. Strong enough that everybody in the world could have a copy of the file but only the person with the proper key could ever decrypt in the lifetime of the universe.