Security,Privacy and Recycle Bin

This is some little old trick that I am gonna talk about. Even I knew this much before. But why I am talking this now is because I found a fairly good use of this Windows trick last day!

We are security conscious while working with our PCs, especially when we have the so-called sensitive private information in our hard disk. Well, we use a number of tricks to hide them, or lock them.. which includes simply hiding them to using Folder-lock softwares. Now a case when all these protections go in vain is when we write these files to a CD-ROM, or while transporting them with a usb drive. I bet you have burned your heads on this at some point if you had such need of privacy!

So here's the very simple solution.

The basic operation involves two batch files. For ease I have created them by myself and you can download them here:
Download lock.zip

Now I will explain what each of the batch files do. The two batch files in the archive are lock.bat and unlock.bat. Double clicking them executes the files. You can right click->Edit to edit the source of the batch files.

The code in lock.bat is:
ren et ".Recycler.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"
attrib +h +s ".Recycler.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"

The first line renames the folder et(the private folder) to .Recycler.645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

When the renaming occurs the folder is disguised as Recycle Bin! It will have the name .Recycler
It has icon of the Recycle Bin and clicking on it launches the Trash itself.

We can probably stop here and even put the Recycle Bin on the desktop!
We can safely write this Bin to a CD as well!!

Now look at the second line. It adds extra protection by making this a system folder. You can't view a system folder even when viewing hidden folders is enabled!

Take a look at unlock.bat as well:
It does nothing but the reverse of what lock.bat did.
It disables the system folder attribute of Bin and then renames into the original folder.

You can rename et to your folder's name or do vice versa!
You may also rename .Recycler anything you like!
Note that lock.bat and unlock.bat should be located in the same place as the private folder.

When you change anything, change it in both the batch files.

Now a little word on Ubuntu:
It's still not safe when you use this with an Ubuntu system. It doen't undersatnd Windows tricks! I am not sure even Vista supports it or not!
Ubuntu shows the folder like this:




That is why I have put a dot(.) before the folder name. This hides the folder in Ubuntu unless Ctrl+H is pressed. Temporary protection.
Anyways assuming common people and more Windows users, this is the best we've got!!

Go on.. Recycle for Privacy!

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