Re: Keeping your files invisible howto, by -Shoeshine-



Shoeshine wrote:
Ah what a day, first of all I want to say hi to everyone here. I have been
lurking your postings for quite a while but now I have something maybe of
interrest my self.. This howto is about making a directory that can not be viewed from the
command line and therefor a good place to stuff your files you don't wan't
an intruder to your sistem to view. First of all I have to note that an intruder most likely will enter your box
on the command line and not a GUI, this technique works perfectly in that
case. Here's how it goes:


blabla:# pwd
/root

First of all we type 'pwd' to see what directory we are in, it shows /root

blabla:# ls
Desktop Mail 

To see all the files/directories we have inside the /root we write: 'ls'
In this exaple it only shows us 2 files. Okay now we can make an invisible
directory...

blabla:# mkdir " "
blabla:#

There we made an invisible directory by typing: 'mkdir " "'
The new directory we just have made is called ' ' and can not be seen by
listing the files at the propmt. Let's now try that...

blabla:# ls
Desktop Mail

True, the ' ' directory's name only consist of one blank space and therefor
we can not see it by listing. Now, let's change our working directory to
the new invisible directory... 

bblabla:# cd " "
blabla:/ #

Note that we now are inside a directory, shown by / and a empty space to our
hash... To be sure we check the working directory by: 'pwd'

blabla:/ # pwd
root

Hooray!!  ;]
Now lets make a dir inside this directory. Here you can stuff all your files
that you don't want an intruder to see. The directory is invisible from the
parent directory. We make a dir 'hacks'...

blabla:/ #mkdir hacks
blabla:/ #

The dir with a name 'file' is made inside the invisible directory.
Now we can change back to /root directory and make a: 'ls'. I think at this
point you get the idea so no further explanation is needed. Try your self
to make a directory by typing: 'mkdir " "' (yes with the "") I hope you see the point of it...


-Shoeshine- Anyways, tnx for the much good reading found in here..

Anyone familiar with how unix commands work would notice the "blank" file immediately, especially if they do an "ls -al", which I always do.
Then it would only take a few minutes work to figure out the actual name. Also, the command "ls -alR" would list the contents of the "hidden" directory (as well as all the others) so I wouldn't call it very well hidden. This silly trick is likely to work only on *other* novices.

If you really want to hide your files from other users on a unix system, use the file permissions as they were intended. Learn to use the chmod command (or set the default file creation mask) and you will be much safer.

If you really want to hide something from everyone, learn to use file encryption.

Don't take this post as a slam against you. You are definitely on the right track. Keep experimenting and learning. But remember, no matter how smart you think you are, there are a lot of people smarter than you. Some of them are regulars in this group. If you don't alienate them or outright piss them off, you might be able to learn a thing or two from them.

-oldami



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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Keeping your files invisible howto, by -Shoeshine-
    ... >> command line and therefor a good place to stuff your files you don't ... >> wan't an intruder to your sistem to view. ... >> blabla:# pwd ... >> First of all we type 'pwd' to see what directory we are in, ...
    (alt.2600)
  • Re: Keeping your files invisible howto, by -Shoeshine-
    ... >> command line and therefor a good place to stuff your files you don't ... >> wan't an intruder to your sistem to view. ... >> blabla:# pwd ... >> First of all we type 'pwd' to see what directory we are in, ...
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  • Re: Keeping your files invisible howto, by -Shoeshine-
    ... command line and therefor a good place to stuff your files you don't wan't ... First of all I have to note that an intruder most likely will enter your box ... Note that we now are inside a directory, shown by / and a empty space to our ... Anyone familiar with how unix commands work would notice the "blank" file immediately, especially if they do an "ls -al", which I always do. ...
    (alt.2600)