Re: Password protection. Partitions? Folders?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <2vqhr7$mi9@eis.calstate.edu>,
Greg R. Achenbach <gachenb@eis.calstate.edu> wrote:
> 
> I'm the principal of a school, and we just got our first hard drive a 
> couple of months ago.  It's great.  My problem is that several people use 
> this computer, but there are some things I would like to keep private.  I 
> know I could keep the stuff on floppies that are locked up, but I would 
> rather have the stuff on the HD.  I also know that I can password protect 
> the entire HD, but that would prevent others from using it.  Is there 
> some way to password protect a partition on a HD?  How about a folder?  
> Any other ideas?

The only obvious solution that I can think of would be to set up an
AppleShare or Macintosh System 7 Personal File Sharing file server,
with the files you want to protect on the hard drive of the file
server.  You can then set up different groups of users and individual
users who have access to different sets of files.

Of course, this requires setting up a LocalTalk network, and is a
rather expensive option if you are talking about a IIe (it must be
enhanced, and you need the IIe Workstation Card), plus you need a
Macintosh to act as a file server.


I'm not aware of any method of protecting an entire partition, at
least with the Apple SCSI cards.  The RamFast SCSI card may have a
password protection facility, but others will have to comment here.

I am not aware of any way of password protecting a folder on a local
drive.  

One minor possibility, if you are using a IIgs, would be to mark
folders "invisiable", which would prevent them from being accessed in
Finder (if you turn on the "hide invisible files" preference), but it
is easy to get around this (the folders would be visible from most
other programs anyway).


One other (somewhat expensive) option comes to mind: get a SyQuest
cartridge hard drive for the computer, and keep the files you want to
protect on cartridges which are locked up when not in use.  This is
basically the same as the floppy method, but a SyQuest cartridge is
a lot faster than a floppy, and fits a lot more files.
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand