Hain

The time is drawing near that I have to go home and fear the possible Customs search of all my personal data. Given this irrational paranoia, I have a new hobby: using/finding/making nearly all portable applications. The idea is, well, ideal. I have a USB drive (in my case an SD card) that contains all my sensitive programs and frequently used files: Firefox, Thunderbird, KeePass, Tor, Privoxy, TrueCrypt, instant messengers- things I don't want on my computer even if the damned thing's system is encrypted.

The reasoning behind this is more of practicality than security. If the application can run off of a USB stick, then I can plug that into any computer and work there. I like the sound of this.

So I am looking around at Portable Apps.com, liking what I see. Now I am no slouch when it comes to searching through options to find the one damned setting I need to make what I want to happen in a program. However, some apps just don't want to be contained. Aside from:

1. finding those hard to get portable applications,
2. making wildly detailed BAT scripts that copy and securely wipe application data,
3. running everything in a sandbox, or
4. rewriting source code,

What are other options? Is there some magic setting I can do in Windows to make this happen?

((It is now I think I realize the appeal of Vista, because I think it implements something like this for all running programs.))

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Zweiblumen

I know that this isn't quite was you are asking for but have you looked into U3 ? (www.u3.com).

Yours
ZB

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Sodomy non sapiens. : I'm buggered if I know

Hain

A friend has one of these. It tried to install BS to my computer, which I kindly killed. Despite thinking, "How dare you!" I was surprised that the auto run on it worked. I disabled auto run for all drive letters in TweakUI, yet it still worked...

U3 software is unnecessary since I extract truecrypt to every portable device, and create a file container. The result is precisely the same.

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Cynthetiq

yes but it works really well for non-computer people. they insert and it just installs for the session.

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

telekinetic

Be aware that U3 autorun leaves your system open to USB Hacksaw and USB Switchblade attacks if people get local access to your machine.

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twisted no more

Hain

I figured as much, so I poked around and it does not look like it was installed. Searching further in TweakUI, I forgot to disable autorun on CD, DVD, and removable media. Fault on my end for being careless.

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Zweiblumen

Truecrypt and U3 are totally diffrent products. U3 is a shell for applications that are "mobile".

Yours
ZB

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Sodomy non sapiens. : I'm buggered if I know