This is a manual for "The Super Console Defender", the utility to lock out the keyboard and mouse while you are away. I. Two words about the Defender and its history. This utility was made when some important files were deleted from the author's computer while he was out to lunch. Although those files were successfully recovered ( after 2 hours of a search of that backup disk), the idea of a program which would prevent unauthorised access to computer while the person is away was born. Small non-resident program (versions 1.xx) was written to accomplish this task. On one hand, that was enough, on the other hand, you would have to quit or shell to DOS to lock your computer. That's why a new version was written a year or so later. This new version (2.xx) was written in C language and was a real TSR program. Now it was easy to lock the computer at any time. There was only one small drawback: the utility took 14K of conventional memory and was ver naughty when loading into the upper memory. Finally, the state-of-the-art assembler version was written. This version (3.1) needed only 3K of memory and loaded easily into upper, conventional or high memory areas. However, due to a missed line in the source code it didn't have full functionality of the previous releases. One and a half months later, this bug was fixed and "The Super Console Defender" became almost what you can see today. Since then there were several new releases which: - Shrinked the program to less than 2K - Added a total mouse locking features - Removed the built-in backdoor to the console Starting from version 3.36 the utility was included in the FreeDOS. The current version at January 18, 1996 is 3.37. The executable file of the English version of "The Super Console Defender" may be called C_LOCK37.COM, C_LOCKE.COM or C_LOCK.COM depending on the time when and/or place where you have got this utility. Likewise, newer versions may appear with executables named C_LOCKxxy.COM, where xx stands for the subversion number and y stands for the language code. II. About this manual. You will find the description of the interactive user interface in this manual as well as the description of the command-line options. As the time goes newer versions are likely to appear (sometimes they appear few times a day). As a result, some changes and feature not reflected in this manual may appear. However, I promise that these changes are not going to be global and you still be able to use the program using this manual. III. The Copyright, Credits and Disclaimer This program is the intellectual property of Maxim Raevski who is the author of the program. Therefore, any utilisation or reproduction of its code as a whole or in parts without my agreement is illegal. However, this is only a formality. You will find the program's source code on the FreeDOS project's FTPs. This program is subject to GNU free software licence. You can understand this as the program's being FreeWare. You can freely copy this program to and/or from any media, including but not limited to those intended for sale. I carry no responsibility for any damage direct or indirect resulted from the usage of this program. This does not mean that there is a virus built-in the program, but in spite of very careful programming some computers might turn out to be incompatible with this program resulting in a loss of data and/or damage to the hardware. The presense of uncompressed program's executable file on any user's media indicates the agreement with the license. I would like to thank Vladimir V. Ravdin for his invaluable help in the creation of the program. I am also grateful to all computer-crazy teenagers at school 1229 (81) in Moscow who did a lot of testing. IV. How to use the utility. ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» º Before we begin I recommend that you rename the º º executable file of "The Super Console Defender" º º from whatever it is to C_LOCK.COM. º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Now back to the defense strategy. Let's start from loading. Enter C_LOCK at the command prompt. The Super Defender will be loaded in memory, will display brief information about the program, its author (that's me, all right) and some basic information about very hot keys. It will also say something about the password. Now, some theory is required. The Super Defender acts very much like a conventional doorlock. For those of you who don't know: a doorlock locks the door and you need a key to open it. Naturally, the Defender locks your keyboard the way your keyboard lock is intended to and you need a password to unlock. A password is a word or a phrase containing up to 25 characters (latin or cyrillic letters and some special symbols) which is known only to you. You can use any word you like down to easy-cracked "ASDF". The Super Defender takes it one step further beyond conventional keyboard key - it locks the mouse too. That makes clear what made me write this program instead of using that key: it doesn't switch the mouse off. And then you can lose the key (if there was one). So, following the message you press CTRL-ALT-INSERT. (This means press and hold CTRL and ALT keys and then pressing the INSERT or INS key.) If you videocard is in text mode, something like this will appear: ÉÍ The Super Console Defender ÍÍ» º _ º º Enter a password for defense º º º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ (c) RaMax 1996 ÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Now you are able to enter your password (you don't have to use the same password every time). All the characters you enter will be displayed as asterisks on the screen. This is done to prevent others from seeing what you are typing in. If you feel something is wrong with your password, you can delete one two symbols or all the password with BACKSPACE key. Or you could press ESC and close the window. After you press ENTER, the password will be transformed to the upper case and transmitted to the internal buffer. Starting from this moment neither mouse nor the keyboard will respond. Good to know, isn't it? You will see some video effects now - the display's red frame will start blinking. You will not see the mouse cursor anywhere on your screen and the keyboard won't respond even to NUMLOCK or CTRL-ALT-DEL. This is PROTECTION IN ACTION. Now you shouldn't panic. You will be able to open the keyboard. All you have to do is to press CTRL-ALT-INSERT again. A window similar to this will appear: ÉÍ The Super Console Defender ÍÍ» º _ º º Enter the password to unlock º º The Console is locked º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ (c) RaMax 1996 ÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Now you enter the password in the same manner you did before and press ENTER. If the password is correct, the console will be released and the mouse cursor will appear. You can continue your invaluable work! In the unlikely event of enter an incorrect password the picture will change again: ÉÍ The Super Console Defneder ÍÍ» º ********** º º º º Incorrect password_ º ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ (c) RaMax 1996 ÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ All you can do now is press any key. The window will disappear, but the console will remain locked. You have to try again. For your convinience there is another hot key in this program: CTRL-ALT-END. This program works in graphics mode as well. But you will never see that friendly window. Instead, green frame will start blinking. The procedure of entering a password remains the same. And now about command-line options. You will find the list of switches below. Switches are not case-sensitive and can start with either '-' or "/" (dash or forward slash). The most often used switch is 'unload' (/r or /u). The program will unload itself from memory only if it is safe, i.e. no other program working with the keyboard is loaded after the Defender. Anyway, the program will inform you about the situation. The next switch toggles that blinking frame on or off (/l). You might want to use this option with some older EGA cards. My advice will be to keep the frame on, because it shows anyone that the console is locked. One more key - C (/C:password). It instructs The Super Defender to copy the "password" to its internal buffer and close the console. Pay attention: you must put colon before the password and it must not contain any spaces. I use it to launch the Defender from my AUTOEXEC.BAT to lock the conolse right from the boot-up. And finally, you can get help by running the program with the help switch (/? or /h) V. The resident version of the Super Console Defender allows some other program to run while the console is locked. You can use this to run virus scan on an unattended computer withour any fear. This is all I can tell you about The Super Console Defender. Don't worry, This is Protection in Action! ‚‘…ƒ„€ "‘ã¯¥à ‡ é¨â­¨ª" ­ ¤¥¦­® § é¨â¨â!!! (tm)