Interesting that the word hide has to be put in quotes by many people, since they seem to know that nothing is actually being hidden in their suggestions. I wonder if that computer technician held his hands in the air and made the hand motions associated with quotation marks when he said "hide" as well.
I doubt it. While encrypting things can prevent access, having an encrypted zip file sitting on your desktop called "Nothing_to_see_here.zip" isn't really hiding anything.
Some laptops come with the ability to password protect the drive, where once it is enabled through the bios you have two options... enter the password or format the drive. Dell is one of those companies that includes this function. Ok. You can ALSO call Dell after you have put in the wrong password 3 times, and you can give them the challenge code presented on your screen and they will give you the response code to bypass the password... but they also charge for that service if your warranty has expired. Again... this is not hiding anything.
There is a world of difference between allowing someone access to a room so they can search for something tucked out of sight (hiding), and just barring them from entering altogether (encryption).
Since I do not appreciate absolute statements like: "and there is nothing you can do about it"
No. You did not like this technician essentially telling you that he knew something you did not, and/or that he was better than you at something. This is why you immediately tried to think of how to better this technician, instead of actually realizing that what he was saying means nothing! It would not have hurt you in the least to have admitted right there and then that maybe he actually could FIND any file you had HIDDEN. Of course, you would have needed to have him define what hiding means in this context... since (again) it seems that "hidden" apparently means different things to different people. Regardless, your issue with his challenge has nothing to do with his boast, and everything to do with your inability to accept the possibility that he might actually be better than you at something. This is why you could not leave the challenge alone. This is why you do not appreciate absolute statements like that. Because the truth is, there are times when things will happen in your life and there WILL BE NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.
You want a way to keep files you access regularly from being found? Keep them off your computer. How about that? Store them on a flash drive. Then, you can keep the files on your person at all times, and no one can access your laptop to get them when you are not near your laptop. Who made the stupid rule that all your files have to stay on your laptop at all times? I'm not talking about this technicians childish boasting and whatever game you have turned this into. Once you encrypt the file, or hide it in an image, or remove it from your computer onto a flash drive, then his game is over. Why? Because you did not get the parameters of this challenge defined... and I can guess what they are.
- The file has to be somewhere accessible.
- You need to play the role of the ignorant fool who thinks that just sticking a file in some directory off the beaten path is the extent of being able to be hidden.
Once you step away from either of these, the game is over, and you "did not understand what he meant".