Making a password protected CD ?

[eyedo]

It makes no sense to me to lock the Mac down when I have a zillion CD's with sensitive business material next to my desk.

I'd like to find a program that would make any CD's I burn password protected and encrypted and the files unviewable on the CD until the password is entered.

Is there such an animal ?

Also,how do I password protect my external firewire hard drive.

I'm on an iMac running jaguar.

I've searched deja news and google and didn't find anything.

eyedo

[Izzy]

Well the only thing I can think of is to use disk copy and make a disk image the same size as the data you want to protect. Then copy this disk image onto the CD and burn it. Now the only way to mount this disk image on the CD would be to use a password.

I'm sure others will have other more elegant solutions, but for what it's worth you could try that.

As for the drive, you could set permissions on it to only open for you (the admin). Then just log out every time you leave your computer and the drive will be unaccessable.

[symphonix]

A simple solution would be this:

- Open the Disk Copy program (in /Applications/Utilities)
- Select File -> New -> New Blank Image
- Select a CD-Rom mastering size (or go for 500mb for convenience). You might also make an image just the right size to hold the files you want to protect and allow a little room.
- Select AES-128 encryption
- You will be asked to enter a password or phrase, and verify it.
- You will now have a DMG file, that when you open it requires a password to be entered before it can mount.
- Open it, mount it, and put in whatever files you need.
- There is an option when entering the password to keep it on your Keychain. Do this if you want to, but remember that anyone who gains access to your Mac and unlocks its keychain may be able to access the files on the CD.

This encryption method won't keep out the NSA or any self-respecting intelligence agency or elite hacker, but it will protect your files against 99.99% of villains.
If you need harder encryption, I'd suggest looking at GnuPG, PGP, CryptoHeaven, etc ...

[owaters]

I have been looking for a way to do this for ages, cheers!