Cloak My Stuff

Whenever you leave the computer, it’s best to lock your workstation to prevent others from snooping through your personal stuff. If not, at least make sure they’re not easy to reach, or identify. One solution is provided by Cloak My Stuff, which processes the content of an entire folder, making files unusable until your intervention.

The first impression manages to convince you to go through, at least for a test run. The visual design is intuitive, with little time spend accommodating. Unfortunately, the only way to target files is through the browse dialog, which only supports folder. Context menu integration would have been pretty useful here, or at least drag and drop.

Cloaking target files is done almost instantly, and this is all because of the method used in the process. Don’t think of the application as a powerful encryption tool, because there’s no encryption involved, but rather smart renaming. In fact, this is the only method why files are not accessible after cloak, because the extension is removed, and the name randomized.

Security is only a matter of luck here. On the one hand, you risk accidentally deleting files, especially since they appear as generic files with random names, and there’s a high chance you’re tricked into believing they’re malicious files.

On the other hand, there’s no code editing involved in the process, which makes the originals intact. The name is the only thing changed, and if an extension is added, the file perfectly functions. As such, advanced techniques can be used to read file functionality from hash code, making extension a vulnerable target.

Although it doesn’t come with a sophisticated algorithm to secure your files, we have to admit that Cloak My Stuff sure makes clever use of the basic rename operation. On the one hand, this keeps file content intact, since extension is just deleted, and it’s simple enough to confuse just about anyone trying to access your personal files.