Comments on: Stupid Geek Tricks: Hide Data in a Secret Text File Compartment

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:26:46 +0000

Oops, I was mistaken I put that there over a year ago. I am sorry please disregard my last comment, except for the part of streams being unrecognized in Vista’s cmd, but working anyway.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:11:31 +0000

I tried this trick in Vista. It worked, but only sort of. I created the streamed files. But streams is not a recognized command line command. I did however end up with an extra command in my history which gave me a 71 page InfoPath 2003 Training PowerPoint presentation. How utterly magical. Thanks.

By: Eugene Burtherworth

Eugene Burtherworth — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:15:49 +0000

just a quick note , I’ve purchased some fake poo … Its plastic !! I thought it would feel like a piece of melted snickers … Any help

By: robb

robb — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:49:49 +0000

nice tips for those who wants to store all important usernames and passwords in one text file.
easily hide it.

By: dcj2

dcj2 — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:46:24 +0000

Just a few observations if you’re going to use this:

If you store important data (eg passwords) in the ADS, be sure to protect the “host” file from accidental deletion – if the host goes, so do all the ADS’s. Put some important looking data in the host – you don’t want to have an empty file sitting out there that would be prone to deletion. Put the file in an obscure location. Give your host file a name that makes it look like it shouldn’t be messed with. You’re not restricted to using TXT as the extension for either the host file or the ADS…you could easily create important.dll:serial.# Even better, use a copy of a real dll as the host: copy winsock.dll to winsock-recovery.dll, then add you ADS to that. Annyone scanning the machine will probably stay away from that file, and even if they look at the contents, it;ll look like a valid DLL (cuz it is).

You can also use the ‘type’ command with output redirection to append long items to your ADS. First, create your host file (host.dll). Now create a second text file with all your “hidden” data (hideme.txt). Now run “type hideme.txt > host.dll:secretstuff.txt”, then delete hideme.txt.

Fun stuff…thanks for sharing, Geek.

By: Anand.V.V.N

Anand.V.V.N — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:03:31 +0000

Cool neat trick, I guess it will server my purpose becuae non of my friend are that tech savy, I can hide my files this way

By: jd2066

jd2066 — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:59:39 +0000

@Bryon K. Altenbach: You should post your question on the site forums.
Few people watch these comments so you are unlikely to get an answer here.

By: Bryon K. Altenbach

Bryon K. Altenbach — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:06:07 +0000

I am using office 2007 on Vista. Most everytime I click on a word or office program, two come up. There are also other times where I have to bring up word or excel and open files from the open files within the program. How can I make this stop and start running normal?

Thanks,

Bryon

By: The Geek

The Geek — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:05:21 +0000

@jd2066

Great followup! I wasn’t aware of that shell extension.

By: jd2066

jd2066 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:30:08 +0000

ADS is also used by:
1. Windows XP SP2 and up to store Internet Explorer zone information on downloaded files so it can apply more security then normal to files downloaded from the internet. Usually by blocking access to some files and displaying popups when running others.
2. Windows XP files summery tab to store metadata for some file types.
Support was removed in Windows Vista due the fact that if the file was sent to a non-NTFS file system that data would be lost. Which includes USB flash drives and sending data over the internet.

There is a shell extension at http://www.jsware.net/jsware/sviewer.php5 for viewing the ADS in Windows XP.
Not sure about Windows Vista. The jsware site have anti-vista information on it so if it doesn’t work then it probably won’t be fixed to work with Vista.