Wish list: TC session parameter for Start menu (encryption)

[Ralph]

I would like to be able to enter a Start menu parameter for use during a TC session. For example, I could automatically pass a password to an encryption program. If I could enter the parameter only once per TC session, then I could avoid having to re-type with each call to the encryption program. More importantly, I could use the session parameter once to decrypt a standard file that had been encrypted with the desired password. If the decryption worked, then I could encrypt files for the remainder of the session, knowing that the correct password was being used. For this application, I would not want TC to store the parameter to disk. The location for entering the session parameter, for example, could be at the bottom of the main Start menu.
Thanks

[norfie]

[Hacker]

norfie,
What do we have SET for...?

Roman

[Sheepdog]

I would like to be able to enter a Start menu parameter for use during a TC session. For example, I could automatically pass a password to an encryption program.

What about a batch?

Code: Select all

Set password=MyVerySecretPassword
start c:\Totalcmd\totalcmd.exe

or

Code: Select all

rem if you like to pass a password you'll have to set the first parameter  PW
rem and then your password (this way it doesn't work for password with spaces inside)
if not "%1"=="PW" goto without
Set password=%2

rem the first two parameters are the Password indication and the password
rem so you'll have to pass the usual TC commandline parameters beginning with %3
start c:\Totalcmd\totalcmd.exe %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 


:without
rem No password is set so you pass the common parameters

start c:\Totalcmd\totalcmd.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 

The second one you have to run like:
TC.bat PW prettygood /l=c:\ /r=f:\

where your password is 'prettygood' and the left window should open in c:\ and the right one in f:\

Of course you must adopt the program directory

sheepdog


edit:
2Hacker

You ar as quick as lightning

/edit

[norfie]

[Hacker]

Sheepdog,

You ar as quick as lightning

As always...

norfie,
OK, might be, I am not using SET except in autoexec.bat...

Roman

[Ralph]

Thanks for your replies.

I am concerned that an environment variable might be discovered or persist until I remembered to clear it.

I would like to type and test a password as infrequently as practical, yet prevent another person or program from finding the password because I have forgotten to clear it or because the password is in a common location. I now am thinking of a parameter that would persist in TC's memory for a user-specified number of minutes, or until the TC session would end, whichever would happen first. (I may leave TC running for weeks.) The Start menu parameter could be something like %W

[norfie]

[Ralph]

Norfie,

Quote:
"This both demands
1st: remember
2nd: prevent from finding of a password (without an additional encryption with another master password) are impossible on the same time. Every location (which TCmd is able to use) is a common location and there is no possibility to prevent a program to find this location. ..."

OK, I think that I understand the problem; thanks for your explanation. Still, I am hoping for some way to encrypt while staying in the TC environment, yet controlling the amount of re-typing and re-testing of the password. If I have adequate anti-virus and firewall software, then maybe the risk of my encrypting some files forever with a mis-typed password, because I have gotten tired of re-typing and re-testing the password, is greater than the risk of having my password captured and used on my files.

Does this problem of password capture apply to every encryption program? Does the "master password" concept that you mentioned provide a way out? Would it be better for TC to avoid the Windows standard password dialog, and to use some more generic or even home-made dialog? Since I would want to let the password persist about 30
minutes, and I would use a complicated password, I would be happy to see the password as I typed, rather than asterisks (******).

[norfie]

[Sheepdog]

A (weak) solution is to use the Windows user account concept (NT, W2k, XP not the kind of W95, W98). Every person use his own account (user login and password). Therefore no other person should be able to work with your user account and use an always running TCmd instance.

The main weakness in this concept is that each user with administrator rights could reset your pasword and/or take over the rights of your files.
And if someone is able to access your computer without beeing disturbed, he can easily break in with administrator rights. This requires only physical access and a bit crminal energy.

Another point: This concept works only for NTFS-filesystem. All FAT -filesystems don't support the required rights-management.

Maybe for you is the Pretty Good Privacy a good solution. It's the concept with private and public keys. You have a private key to encrypt and use a
public key to decrypt. To access your private keys you use a single master-password. For that it can be a bit complicated because you have only to remember one password. And the file encrypted with your private key can only be decrypted with the depending public key. So you could give a particular public key to your friend and send to him always files encrypted with the depending private key. Noone else would be able to decrypt the file - until he gets the right public key.

Hope you get the idea.

sheepdog

[Hacker]

Sheepdog,

And the file encrypted with your private key can only be decrypted with the depending public key. [...]

Just to put some things right, you encrypt files using public keys end decrypt them using private keys.

Roman