Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Power Of Rename

Make Your File Inaccessible by Other People :-

I was just messing with windows files and discoverd some really worth mentioning things the simple tool or inbuilt program called ren short for Rename is so powerfil, Hey now let me try to show some cool tricks to make your files inaccessible by other and i am sure nobody will be able to read your personal letters and other stuff like your password lists of different email accounts :) without using Encryption.

let me start now, each and everybody of your knows what a ".txt " file is and what ".exe" stands for .txt is the extenstion for text files, created and edited in notedpad. and .exe files and excuteables files which infact are sequences of program execution and also .com files are also same thing as exe but they are command files. mostly based on DOS. and exe is mostly for Windows, the GUI stuff.

Ok now let me start off, First of all open your My Computer and then go to view and then folder options and click on it and a windows opens now click on the second Tab View. there you can see in the Advanced Settings the Third Square Check Box. It says Hide File extentions for known file types now uncheck it as it is checked by default. this will show us the extention of all the files which makes it easier for us. we will discuss it later how.

Now Open Notepad and type some stuff in it about yourself, your school, or anything that you like worth writing and then click on file save and it prompts you for a file name, and thats it now you need to play some trick here type the name of the file as "1.exe" it should be 1.txt but here we dont want others to access our files so you just type it as .exe and in the tab below the file name says save File Type as Text Document and scroll down and select the all files option and now just click on Save. ok now take for example you saved your files on C:\>1.exe now open My computer and click on C: and try to grab that file and double click it and wow look at the eroor message it gives you.

C:\1.exe is not a valid win32 Application

This is because it is considered by windows as an executable file, but we know it cannot be executed as it contains our data which is not some program execution instruction, and so whom so ever clicks on it will get an error message and probably ignore it and that what is your biggest assest. you can also put your important files on desktop of your School Computer and everybody else will just ignore it as it has no meaning for it. It is you and only you who knows what is behind the scenes, and now even your teacher will not know what it is :) and now if you want to edit that file or open that file you wont be able to do it by just clicking on it. what you have to do is fire up notepad and click on File => open and then scroll the tab below the filename and make it to all files and then C:\>1.exe and now you can view the contents of the file. you can also do that by just renaming the file to 1.txt from 1.exe and double click it to view the contents and then make the changes and then save it and then again rename it to 1.exe and now once again your file is secure.

You can use this trick on many other differnet things like protecting your .Doc files with passwords and then Changing the extention to .exe or .com and its more secure, i know word password doesnt count but still you can use it as a safety measure as all users are not elite. and just think of some important password you have to send to your friend or maybe some imporant documents and what if someone is sniffing all the traffic on your network, now what can you do ? well i know you might say i will encrypt my files and then send them, ya you can do it but what if you are on a public computer and you dont have any encryption tool. ok i am sure now you can use this trick as this will trick anybody. and other most important thing is it is not limited to text and doc. files it can be used with anyother extentions .xls, .db, or anything else, you can fool other from running your programs by just changing the .exe into .txt and nobody would ever know that what they just clicked and got an error message is a Client of a Trojan behind the Scenes. now there are some places full of restrictions where you are allowed to download on specific extention of files like .txt .doc or .zip but no .exe or .com files allowed. Here you can use this trick from your house upload the files while renaming it to .txt and download the .txt and then rename and nothing will look suspicious.


YEA but a Warning better off i tell you Dont change an executable files extention with other executable extention as the file might get executed and you might get caught. for example. you have a file name trojan.exe and you changed it to trojan.com and this will not help. it will spoil your effort as both are executables there is not use of doing so, it will get executed so intead change the extention to somthing different like .dba or .mp3 and let me tell you it works file with me. to get a better security you need to put some extra effort but its the greatest help i can see. to hide my files. And there are a lots of uses of this trick and now i want you to explore as now i am really tired of typing, and for any Comments or Sujjestions drop me an email.

Uses :-

1) Securing Files.
2) Alternative to Encryption (Not really but still can be called)
3) Fool Others.
4) Eleminates sniffing.
5) Prevents Other people From using your Tools.

Thanks
Abhiz

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