Data Partition Protection

Whatever Erick,
I've always found your arrogance irritating. You're always quick to shoot down people's ideas and dismiss them completely. It's great that you may have found something that works for you, but really..you're here posting...asking for other ideas... If an idea doesn't suit you well, move on to other ideas, don't throw your attitude back in our faces. I'm done with you.

 

Chill out Erik - you have asked for any ideas - you can't now simply reject them as not relevant or not important.

For the record - what you have already, as I understand it, is more than good enough. FD-ISR with freeze or Returnil or deepfreeze.....to protect C: and data on another partition combined with a good hardware router and Firefox and why bother with general encryption, realtime scanners, hips etc ?


details that might be worth stealing ( bank, credit card) can easily be stored, encrypted etc in any one of a dozen programs. Try Roboform as one of the more popular

 

if you don't like eriks' post, leave him alone....this is open forum!

 

Yes it is an open form which is why everyone is entitled to make the points they want. To allow Erik to make his point as the OP and to prevent others from making their points would would not be open

 

I just hope you guys who are blasting loud the horn at Eric understand that his form of what appears bordering on criticism is just his letting off steam over disappointment. We all get thoroughly frustrated on occasion especially when we seem to be standing at a brick wall that seems impossible to get around.

His manner of disappointment just happens to spill over sometimes in ways that to us take the form of seeming downright snotty, as Pete so aptly put it But really is harmless so i would hope no lasting offense is been taken by those remarks, even if they seem to sting a bit

I think main crust of his desire still remains somewhat unanswered enough to satisfaction at times, and for that, it's too bad it's a fact that our timing doesn't always line up at the expected moment looked for.

I think i covered that some well enough for all to regroup again

This is still a very useful & interesting Topic even if it does swerve off to second base occasionally.

 

I think Erik if you fared well for the last bygone years,without any loss due to online criminals then it will be same for the years to come because you already well covered and any adding will complicate matters so stay with your default setup,it has been proven in time i guess !?!

 

I'm not quite sure what, at least in general directional terms, remains unanswered.

In the discussion of data protection, the key thing to realize is that protection equates to eliminating access to and corruption of data files. Once can view malware "infection" of a data file as a form of corruption, but infection is really a rather incorrect term.

Once you're at this point, it's a simple matter to break out a set of possible solutions. You don't need to be comprehensive, just develop a reasonable palette.

To deal with file corruption (i.e. file different than desired):

• Simple restoration via an additional copy (offline, secondary partition, etc.)
• Restore via elimination of any undesired changes (Deep Freeze, Returnil, etc.) - clearly some of these are more suited to a data volume than others.

To deal with eliminating access (i.e. cannot be read or, if read, not understood):

• Maintain volume physically offline
• Lock the volume from any access
• Render the contents of the volume uninterpretable via encryption

Naturally, some combinations are more appropriate than others, but rendering that decision depends on the nature and volatility/fluidity of the data, which depends on a local analysis. As always, there are a multitude of equivalent solutions that achieve the functional results outlined above with some decidedly more convenient than others.

Blue

 

Looks like this program http://www.pcundo.com/baseline_shield.php
is Deepfreeze or Returnil on Steroids. Prevents identity theft and key logging ?

worth a look ?

 

Is that program you mentioned similar to the one Chris mentioned earlier? Looks like they offer the same programs but under different names> Don't know about price comparisons though or differences in support and other things related to the companies but this program sounds good to me compared to DF and some of the others mentioned. Might try this one out and see what happens.

Gary

 

The whole suite of programs appear to be made by http://www.eazsolution.com/en/baselineshield.php It's just that I couldn't find a price on the eazsolutions site

 

Hi guys,
Keep in mind that this topic is about "Data Partition".
Users who have everything on ONE partition, don't have a "Data Partition", just one large partition[C:], which is the most attacked partition and I would never put my data there.
Users who have a pure "Data Partition", have also a pure "System Partition" without data.
Having a system and data partition is NOT the same as having ONE partition.
I used both and I'm not going back to ONE partition.
All ISR-softwares recommend a separation of data, in case you didn't notice.

My "System Partition" is protected by my boot-to-restore and a few security software, that TRY to stop the execution of malwares, I hope they do.
There is only ONE kind of software that never failed on me and that is Image Backup, which restores my System Partition with a clean image.
All the rest fails : FDISR and security softwares.

Since my "System Partition" is not a problem anymore, I needed something to protect my "Date Partition".
My "System Partition" doesn't protect my "Data Partition" and security softwares can't be trusted, if you like to trust them, no problem for me, I don't.

PC Security allows me to lock my "Data Partition" with two mouse clicks and that is a guaranteed protection, while I'm surfing on the internet. I don't even have to surf safely anymore.
No reading, no writing, no stealing, ... I can't have a better protection for my data partition than this and it's simple and efficient.

My "Data Partition" is the most important partition, because it contains all my precious data and my hard work.
If I start surfing on the internet, I don't know what can happen to my data and I'm not going to guess.
If my data gets infected and I don't see it, I will backup the infected data in the evening.
Backup only prevents losing data, but doesn't prevent infection and it only restores the infected data back, that is not my idea of security.

And of course ONE-partition-users cannot lock their data partition, otherwise they have to lock the complete partition[C:] and that's impossible. So they need other ways to protect their data. In other words, I can do things, what other users can't.

If I would listen to any advice, my computer would be too small.
So don't be offended, when I don't use your proposal, because this is about software and software are just THINGS. I don't even understand feelings towards software, I never had those. I only like softwares, when they seem to do their job most of the time, but I never adore them or force them to use.
I just tell my approach, I never expect they agree with me or even use it.
And if you have any critic, please do, I never had a problem with critics.

 

have just taken a look at pc security. would need to be really good before I would spend the $300 needed to protect my machines.

to date I would say that my data partition/drive is protected by imaging. If something bad ever did get onto my data drive I have always thought that I would just restore a clean data image. Difficult to be more precise as I've never knowingly seen anything bad ever get onto my data drive.

So I have done my 2 clicks and my data is now protected. Then while surfing something nastie gets downloaded. I guess if I remember to reboot before I open my data then my data is still safe ? but what if I want to save something though ?
If scanners can't be trusted then I assume that I just 2 clicks to open data and then save - and if the thing I down loaded is bad its on my data partition after all ?

what about e-mail ? My pst files are on my data drive so if locked I can't save any e-mail. If not locked then no different than now.

 

This one has similar features to PC Security but is less pricey.....InTouch Lock from http://www.lovelysoft.com/

 

It depends of course how it works in practice. I've seen other locking softwares, which also locked, but in a very inconvenient way. The way PC Security does it, is hard to beat. Thanks anyway.

PS: I think Folder Lock or Lock Folder XP, something like that, was the one with a bad solution.

 

erik,
i've been using folder lock since 2006, this is very simple and very powerful application to protect your data.


PS. the only problem i experienced with folder lock is when i re-installing my previous AV, folder lock stopping my AV to install (dont know why). So I need to uninstall first folder lock before installing my previous AV (PCCillin).

 

I looked it up and I remember the GUI, so I must have tried it. For some reason, I must have ditched it, but I don't remember why.
Most of them are simple and powerful, but the way they do it isn't the same.
There was also another one with a similar name and "XP" in it, I ditched it too.
Another one required a reboot, that's very inconvenient.

BTW do you know if "hide" offers the very same protection as "lock" or is there a difference ? Personally, I think "lock" is stronger than "hide".

 

not sure about the hide-lock protection difference.

but if somebody can explain what is "256-bit Blowfish Encryption" using by folder lock.....then "lock" protection using that encyrption is stronger.

 

lock means that something is encrypted/protected but can still be seen ?
Hide means that is simply can not be seen by anyone but the user ? may also be encrypted/protected but not necessarily.

 

Lock means that you still can see the harddisk, but you don't have access to the harddisk. If you click on it, you don't get a view of the folders, just an error message.

Hide means that the harddisk is hidden, you can't see it anymore, but that's all I know.

 

Erik Albert

OK, so you've locked your data partition when you are online, which means others (& you) cannot immediately access it.

I have a couple of questions:
Is this to protect your data files from corruption or to prevent others accessing your data files when online?
At what level does the Folder Locking such as PC Security protect you - in Windows GUI only or at low level disk access?
Therefore does it definitely prevent rootkits, keyloggers etc. accessing your data assuming, of course, they had managed to slip by Anti-Executable?

I am not trying to be critical - I am very interested in your solution as I have separate system & data partitions and have been considering the need for data partition 'protection' for a while now.
My thoughts up to now have been using a combination of AJC Active Back Up for 'on the fly' work within my data files plus Karen's Replicator to an external HD deals with data corruption but that encryption for 'sensitive' data should deal with 'inappropriate' access.
My irritation with encryption is that I want rapid access to my data including times when I'm online. Folder locking could be an answer but what I am unsure about is how robust this is to malware attack.

 

Just to clarify any misconceptions on cost.

With PC Security you can use both LOCK & HIDE!

 

Erik's data partition should be quite safe with PC Security bar none except if theres some freeware floating around that can perform those same duties, and as the old saying goes, wait long enough and something just like that will eventually surface for free. (maybe)

Theres been plenty of alternative solutions bandied about and some are pretty good, but i think PC Sec is about the best (simplest) overall because you can both hide & lock data in a similiar manner as if you used your favorite opartition manager to change the flags. Plus it's chalked full of numerous other features.

I think it comes down to what combo can effectively plug 99% of all the donut holes, entry channels if you will in Windows, and the other 1% is simply impossible because were dealing with software and any software can go down as well as yet some other yet discovered undocumented door to subvert Windows internal code.

Thats my take on it anyway. I like the combo personally of SandboxIE & Returnil or Power Shadow here along with the file/registry/app protection that EQSecure offers. Of course PC Security for me is the Locker for my other drive or partition because it's more convenient then changing flags.