How to prevent employee theft by copying hard drive

[dlessnau]

I use the Holster Laptop for my shows and have 750 cdg's imported. I have now hired a KJ to do shows I cannot do myself.

Is there anyway to protect myself from the KJ copying my songs on the laptop hard drive and going into business for himself?

Seems like anyone with computer ability could get many thousands of dollars worth of songs, and weeks of importing those songs, in a few hours, for free.

[admin]

We had not addressed this specific need of honest businessmen who could get their songs ripped off by employees.

We are very close to having a new means to encrypt songs to only run on the Hoster they were recorded on, if you want to protect them. This will also allow us to sell songs that only run on the Hoter they are purchased from (Buy Now button clicked in Hoster to incorporate the Registration Code to protect them with).

If we wrote a batch processor to encrypt all your KMA songs, this would insure you are not ripped off. This would not be simple to write and easy to execute. I'll add that to our spec we are working on.

However, once encrypted, there will be NO WAY to remove the encryption.

[dlessnau]

That is good that you are working on the problem. However, the fix must be made to allow the songs on the backup harddrive to be re imported ,in the event of a hard drive failure on the laptop.

Also, if one were to purchase a new computer when new and better is available, one needs to be able to take the songs from the old computer and put them onto the new one.

I would never again in my life want to spend the hundred plus hours importing the same songs.

I must say the ai am VERY please with my Holster Laptop and Software and it has worked flawlessly since I purchased it. Makes a hard job a lot easier.

[quaizywabbit]

Is it possible to have the drive(s) encrypted to be used only with hoster, yet have an owner password to allow it's use on another hoster computer owned by the same company? In a sense it's kinda like having universal spare parts in inventory(interchangeability), so I'd need less of them.

It should not be a user entered password, but automatically detected. I suppose for that kind of scheme to work there would need a way for the owner to "tie" these computer's to a common
encryption scheme, perhaps during registration of each Hoster install.

[dlessnau]

Does anyone know how to encrypt the imported songs on the hard drive so that an employee with access to the laptop cannot copy them without a password?

[admin]

Originally posted by quaizywabbit
Is it possible to have the drive(s) encrypted to be used only with hoster, yet have an owner password to allow it's use on another hoster computer owned by the same company? In a sense it's kinda like having universal spare parts in inventory(interchangeability), so I'd need less of them.

It should not be a user entered password, but automatically detected. I suppose for that kind of scheme to work there would need a way for the owner to "tie" these computer's to a common
encryption scheme, perhaps during registration of each Hoster install.

You have no idea how hard it is to modify the Registration Security. It has taken us 5 years to get where we are today.

No, we won't consider protecting a hard drive. There is no way that we are aware of to prevent Windows Explorer from copying the songs off the "protected drive".

dlessnau, we are working on a command you will be able to execute to encrypt all your songs to play only on that Hoster. No quaizywabbit, once they are encrypted, they will ONLY run on that Hoster RegCode. That's the only way we can truly offer protection. I expect this to be in Hoster 2.3, which will be a free upgrade to those who have upgraded to 2.124. We should start beta testing 2.201 this or next week.

However, in 2.124, we now allow you to install Hoster on a backup computer if your show computer fails. Thus, the same encrypted songs (when we offer this) will run on the backup also. However.... this is your backup means in the event your show computer fails, NOT to run a second show with.

[kedmison]

Ok guys n gals, here's the situation and question:

I currently have my video coming out of my laptop via s-video. This connects down to a RCA "Y". One feed goes to the house big screen and the other to my 13"TV for the singers. I am wanting to replace my 13" tv with a Dell Flat screen computer monitor. What type of connection do I need to use to go from an RCA connection to the standard pin connection on the flat screen monitor?

Thanks,
Kelly

[dlessnau]

I can hardly wait for the new software allowing encrypting.

However, how would I handle this situation?:

I would encrypt the songs on my laptop. What about my songs on my external backup harddrive? Could I keep adding new songs to that harddrive, as backup, BEFORE they were encrypted on my laptop.

This is important, because I might want to purchase another laptop from you for use by my employees, and I will need to install the songs from the external harddrive onto the new laptop. I would not want to go through importing my discs again in my lifefitme.

If necessary, I would purchase another back up external harddive so I would be completely protected.

Please advise how the above would be handled.

[gduns - with the Lord]

if you are using win 2000, or xp pro. you could have a computer shop (if you dont know how) to set up a user account, without backup privileges. for your kj host to use. all he can do is see the songs, and play them not backup, or copy them. I have never done this, but they do this on our computers here at work all the time. it would offer you the protection you are looking for.

[kedmison]

If you are looking at you and your employee doing shows at the same time you will also need to make sure you have duplicate "original" music to back up what you're using.

Kelly

[dlessnau]

I use Windows XP Home. Will your idea work with that?

[gduns - with the Lord]

I think it is, you need to talk to a computer shop they can tell you for shure. I think the only difference is that you cannot log onto a domain with xp home. But you should be able to set up a user and set permissions. You would be set up as the administrator, and he would be setup as a guest user. (not a power user). That would allow him to execute programs, just not to backup or copy. I believe I am right about this.

[dlessnau]

I just talked to a computer tech about this, and he said they could make the Folder that the Holster songs are in, password protected. That way, if someone wanted to copy the songs, they would need the password.

Sounds too easy to me, but I will check it out further.

[gduns - with the Lord]

COOL, Good luck!!

[dlessnau]

Thank you gduns for your user account idea. That is the one that solved the problem. I went to a computer shop and they set up a user account for use by the person that does my shows when I am not there.

He logs on to the computer with his password and he can use Holster to play songs and that is all to which he has access. He cannot to anything else on the computer. When I log on with my password, I have access to everything.

Cost me $47.00 to protect myself from a big time rip off. Now I don't have to worry about encrypting the songs, and any potential problems that could cause.

[gduns - with the Lord]

Glad to be able to help thanks for letting us know.

[crazycarl]

that is a great Idea g_guns and so easy I'll be doing the same thing soon. I still think you should be on MTU'S Payroll. What do you think DAVE HINT HINT!!!!!!!!
Crazycarl

[gduns - with the Lord]

carl,
But I get my satisfaction helping out! MTU has done so much for me, and Hoster has made my hobby more fun than work. One day it may be a job.

[dlessnau]

The guru that said he could lock down my computer from copying goofed. He tells me it can't be done on Home, only on Professional. He set up a user account for my employee but he still could copy the songs if he wanted to.

However, besides that, when I got home, I went into the employee's access account. I put in his password, and guess what? Holster could not find the files. I think it only allows me to access the files to play songs.

Disaster. However, I set a restore point before taking the computer to the guru, and I put it back the way it was, and all is working again.

Now I have lost confidence in guru, and won't put on Professional as I bet I would have the same problem.

I am now thinking, one can make the song folder private with a password. But maybe that would stop Holster from working to.

I don't know.

I wish Bryan would give some input to this post, to see if what I am trying to do is possible. How do you get him to see the post?

[George]

This is what the XP Home help file says about setting up accounts.


User accounts overview
User accounts personalize Windows for each person who is sharing a computer. You can choose your own account name, picture, and password, and choose other settings that will apply only to you. A user account gives you a personalized view of your own files, a list of favorite Web sites, and a list of recently visited Web pages. With a user account, documents you create or save are stored in your own My Documents folder, separate from the documents of others who also use the computer.

If you use a password for your user account, all of your files are kept secure and private so that other users cannot see them. However, you can still mark certain items as shared if you want other people to be able to access them. If you do not use a password for your user account, other people will have access to your account and be able to see all of your folders and files.

If you have a user account and you change computer settings, such as the type size or the screen saver, those settings will apply only to your account.

As a user with a computer administrator account, you can create, delete, and change all user accounts on the computer. You can create as many accounts on the computer as you want, and have full access to all accounts on the computer. For information about the types of accounts available, click Related Topics.

It appears the help section considers it doable, and probably tells how. Didn't search any further. Just wanted to see if it was in the XPHOME Manual.

George