Keep your confidential files away from intruders

There are many ways of hiding private data from intruders. Let us see how we can hide things with and without using softwares.

* Without Using any Softwares.

First we shall cover the basic file system concepts of the operating system.

Every Operating System has a file system. The file system is the basic of holding any kind of data. A File System basically is a record keeping system, it keeps the record or description of any file. This Task is specifically done by a thing called FAT ..... Which stands for File Allocation Table. This File Allocation Table is a encoded database kind of thing. The Fat Basically Holds The Following Information : 1. File Name + extention 2. File Size 3. Location 4. Hierarchy Pointer 5. Location Variable 6. Extention flags etc. and a lot for information.

The Most Popular Way and probably the oldest one is Hiding using MS-DOS.

This technique equally works on all os platforms. or where ever We can use a command prompt to access files. The trick is to rename your folder in a way which is not recognizable by your Operating System. The Best Way To Do Is to Rename Them Using Special Characters because special characters are not recognized by even Linux and Unix.
So the steps would be

1. Identify The Folder of file u want to LOCK.
2. Do The Command Prompt
3. Use the 'ren' Command To Rename the file/folder to name containing ASCII characters other than the ones found on the keyboard , which can be done by using combinations of ALT+(some number) keys combination.
eg. ren c:\temp c:\temp¶É¢ª

In The above example the characters at the end of the name are made by using the following key combinations
ALT+144 = É etc.

Now You can even use these characters at the beginning of the name of the file/folder, now the use of doing all this is that these special character are not recognized by many operating systems as valid characters. In windows when u double click it You would simply get an error.
But there is a way to break this deceit this system, that is the name still shows properly in the directory listings in the command prompt and rename it back to recognizable form to use it. if u can do it yourself, any body else can too , so do something special. ;-)

Now If You Want to become invincible I have another trick for you up my sleeve.
In the ASCII Chart there is a character that DOES NOT SHOW in the directory listings in Command Prompts. This Character can be used As Many Number of times as u like with combination with other characters as well. This Would Ensure That Nobody else can see that how many times u have used the "SPECIAL" Character.. So Nobody Else Would Be Able To OPEN the folder of file other than ur self. That special character is an invisible character marker by key combination : ALT+255

* Using Softwares
Google will take you to many softwares when you search about folder locking. But after trying many softwares in this category I came out with two best locking softwares, one is Folder Lock which is free of cost and Microsoft's Private Folder v1.0 . I recommend Microsoft Private Folder to Folder Lock and you can download it from third party sites if your not legitimate Windows O.S. user. These softwares will allow you to put all your important files in a suitcase kind and lock, The suitcase can be opened with the password which you have to select. Last thing you need to do is remember that password, guess u dont need another suitcase to save that password :P

source: Hackthissite