Quick scenario on a local Windows system.
Drive E:
is formatted with NTFS has the following layout and permissions:
E:\ (JohnDoe)
E:\folder (Administrator)
E:\folder\subfolder (JohnDoe)
JohnDoe
has read/write access to the root directory.JohnDoe
has read/write accesssubfolder
JohnDoe
does NOT have access tofolder
JohnDoe
does NOT have the ability to alter permissions.
Since JohnDoe
cannot access folder
and thus cannot list the contents, he must type in the path E:\folder\subfolder
manually. There is is no "clickable" way to get from E:\
to subfolder
.
Here's the question: Is there any way for JohnDoe
to discover the existence and path of the accessible subfolder
, without being able to list the contents of it's parent folder
? Assume that he was not told the subfolder
's name and that the permissions do not change from what is stated above.
For the sake of this problem, ignore the possibility of a brute-force attack to guess subfolder
's name. Only non-brute-force methods are permitted.