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There are three questions on SE sites about "Hide X":

Searching on various search engines for this tool it seems that these three links seems to be the only mention of this tool. Also if you check the profile of the asker and all of the answerers it seems they have been created at the same time, and they mostly only answer questions realted to this tool. (the same is true for the two questions on AskUbuntu)

Is this "Hide X" really an existing something, or are the asker and the answerer are just sock-puppets who are trying to get some rep from asking and answering junk?

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  • It's a recruitment tool for the ABW.
    – Samir
    Sep 13, 2014 at 15:13

2 Answers 2

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Hide X is a command line file manager-ish software, released initially September 11 2001 (don't quote me on the date, but I'm pretty sure.), that creates a virtual storage area. It's under a custom open source license called the L.O.P. (Lax Open License), by the general community. The official website was hidex.oss (see OpenNic Project for more information about .oss domains), but isn't any longer. Still waiting for a new site to appear...somewhere...hopefully?

I don't totally understand how it works, but the basic idea is that you use specified existing files on your computer (or stored remotely) to create a library of code that Hide X interprets, breaks into pre-defined chunks, and assigns keys to. When you save a file to the hidden storage area it's interpreted, broken into chucks using the same interpretation in your library, and then a sequence of the required keys is written to the database kind of like a compressed archive.

I say kind of like, because unlike a normal archive the database entry doesn't contain any of the actual file data, it contains the data needed to re-create the file, the keys.

The idea behind Hide X (as I'm sure you can tell by the name) is to provide hidden secure storage. Unless someone is aware that Hide X is installed they cannot find your data. The database is encrypted, and as discussed it doesn't actually have any of the original code in it (so the database on it's own is useless), and Hide X requires a login before it can be used.

You can have multiple databases which can use the same or different libraries. Other software can be built to have support for Hide X's database. Several years ago a few people on the forums banded together, and made a fork of VLC that could playback files stored in the virtual storage (technically not, since the database is used to re-create the file and then the file is stored in memory). There was discussion of building a custom linux distro with built in support so that applications wouldn't need support added to them individually, and so that users wouldn't need to use the cli to manage files.

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  • 3
    If someone wanted the tool, how would they find it?
    – user253751
    Sep 15, 2014 at 0:16
  • 8
    A non existing TLD? An alleged developer forum without a link? 9/11 as the release date? Lots of weasel words in the description? None of them seems a proper proof of the existence of the tool.
    – SztupY
    Sep 15, 2014 at 8:24
  • @SztupY .oss belongs to OpenNIC, it works if you're using their DNS servers. Try reg.oss with their DNS or this proxy.
    – gronostaj
    Sep 15, 2014 at 10:46
  • @gronostaj: yeah I know, but it seems to be real convenient that a project was only available through an OpenNIC DNS, and oh well, it's not available from there as well anymore.
    – SztupY
    Sep 15, 2014 at 11:33
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    I agree that it's suspicious, but it's not that strange considering that we're talking about a software for hiding data. And it has that cool cyberpunk feel ;)
    – gronostaj
    Sep 15, 2014 at 13:55
  • There isn't a Wikipedia article for this software. Do you think you should create it? (Remember, you'll need to cite your sources.)
    – gparyani
    Sep 15, 2014 at 18:43
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    @damryfbfnetsi Is it notable? This is the basic question for new articles. Sep 18, 2014 at 23:27
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I don't know if it's widely used at all, but I suspect this is it on github.

The questions don't fall in line with what that project seems to do though...

Here's what we found so far:
Test case question 1
settings.dbname = cfg.get("dbname"); is in the source and I've setup the library, and configured the database might be a match.

A quick set of greps didn't turn up much else in the way of similarity. It would be nice if the OP's would respond to comments asking about what software they're asking about was and how it could be obtained.

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    I don't think that's the same utility as what is referenced in the OP
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Sep 13, 2014 at 13:58
  • @Sathya - Fair. We're talking about a couple of the questions over in AU General to see if maybe some of them are legit and others are crap. Sep 13, 2014 at 13:58
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    If they cannot be answered I would argue they are all crap
    – Ramhound
    Sep 13, 2014 at 18:52
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    That github project links to this: psych.ualberta.ca/~westburylab which is a linguistic research tool. The latest version seems to be 0.091 here: github.com/cyrus/high-dimensional-explorer still doesn't contain anything related to the question or answers
    – SztupY
    Sep 14, 2014 at 14:51
  • Crap? more like W.A.S.T.E.
    – A. Donda
    Sep 24, 2014 at 18:00

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