Could you possibly put the items in a single folder and then use a script to change the folder type to a hidden folder (with a . before the folder) so it isn't normally viewable. Such a script could request a password and could be set to run from a desktop icon. It wouldn't be very secure if anyone were to make an effort to locate the content but it should put off people just messing around with the pictures app etc.

Seeing as the default nokia tools have one bug I guess.. they won't go into /home/user from what I can tell only /home/user/MyDocs so just move things over there.

Maybe have a private mode shortcut on the desktop... something that would do:

sudo mount -o bind /home/user/MyDocs-clean /home/user/MyDocs

That way the data is there but effectively hidden from all the apps.

honestly having something like I proposed with the cryptography thing could give you a button to lockdown your device to phone only or something, or 5 seconds to switch the users to someone like guest not able to view private data but use all functions like browse or call or text... automated overwrite of the guest account data at it's logout would be a nice feature as well.

Hidden folders aren't very secure, because some apps might very well list them anyway
As script as simple as
will hide everything from basic users, and also stop people who might somehow find permission changing, but don't know how to sudo (are there any?)
An even smarter script will back up the original permissions so the unhide script can restore them

You left out -R to do it recursilvely... but I'd couple this with a find... also still doesn't solve the problem of vfat access

I didn't mean for it to be used in a high level directory recursively, that would surely break things in spectacular ways. You should make a separate private folder to keep things you don't want seen. Although i guess using -R is good if you make sub-folders there
Anyway, this is nothing more than a simple hack to keep nosy tech-oblivious friends away from your more intimate pictures with the missus or the shopping list. It will do nothing to stop more advanced users. And it will not work on vfat at all (no permission/ownership support on that piece of junk)
Also, i understand most people want a tightly integrated 'secure mode', where they only have to flip a setting and enter the password. I'm afraid even if the infrastructure was there (gpg, encrypted loopback interface and all), the user would still have to do the securing (for example, pictures will have to be moves/encrypted-decrypted manually, unless the camera app is changed to take care of that, which i kind of doubt)

which part of didnt you understand?

an initial script would do the following:
setup user-crypt-space in /home/user/
mount crypt
copy all databases and personal files and settings to crypt and replace original with symlink to crypt
adduser guest
create folderstructure and paste default setting files

maybe everytime a login script needs to fix the symlinks to point to the right target but thats also just a script to run


for your private pictures and stuff you would need to include your user-files My_Docs or have another setup for some folders,

with multi-user support I would repartition the 32GB anyway, to something like 1GB vfat for the guest user, 5GB for my private data (ext3, crypted) and the rest just vfat/ext...(even ext is mountable to windows with IFS drivers...)

eCryptfs would work great for this kind of stuff. Stacked filesystem, dont need to mess around with partitions, just mount your encrypted stuff whenever you want to use it.

It is a kernel module. Is it available on the repositories? (obviously im still waiting for my N900 to arrive )

Added my take on the issue.

I think a simpler solution could actually have a shot, rather than a complex, if better solution that is scheduled for 2015.