| 1 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 2 | NOTE: This version uses a new installer system. You MUST remove |
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| 3 | ALL EARLIER VERSIONS before installing this Beta. When installing |
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| 4 | an earlier stable build, UNINSTALL the Beta first. |
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| 5 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 6 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 7 | Eraser 5.85 Beta 3 (Oct 13th 2007) |
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| 8 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | CONTENTS |
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| 11 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 12 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 13 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 14 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 15 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 16 | 2.1. Libraries |
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| 17 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 18 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 19 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 20 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 21 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 22 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 23 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 24 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 27 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | Eraser Copyright © 2007 by the Eraser Project. All rights |
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| 32 | reserved. |
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| 33 | Eraser Copyright © 2002-2006 by Garrett Trant. All rights |
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| 34 | reserved. |
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| 35 | Eraser Copyright © 1997-2002 by Sami Tolvanen. All rights |
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| 36 | reserved. |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | By using this software you accept all the terms and |
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| 39 | conditions of the license agreement and disclaimer |
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| 40 | below. |
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| 41 | |
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| 42 | All registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in |
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| 43 | this document are the property of their respective |
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| 44 | holders. |
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| 45 | |
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| 46 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 47 | |
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| 48 | This program is free software; you can redistribute it |
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| 49 | and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General |
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| 50 | Public License as published by the Free Software |
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| 51 | Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your |
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| 52 | option) any later version. |
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| 53 | |
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| 54 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be |
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| 55 | useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the |
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| 56 | implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A |
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| 57 | PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License |
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| 58 | for more details. |
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| 59 | |
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| 60 | 1.2.1 GNU General Public License |
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| 61 | The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is attached |
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| 62 | in the file COPYING.txt |
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| 63 | |
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| 64 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 65 | |
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| 66 | The setup program is signed with Pretty Good Privacy |
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| 67 | (PGP) (public key available at web site) for verifying |
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| 68 | the authenticity. The signature file should be included |
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| 69 | with the archive. This file has the extension '.asc'. |
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| 70 | |
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| 71 | If you did not receive a separate digital signature file |
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| 72 | with this archive, download the official binary |
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| 73 | distribution at the home page (see section 5.1). |
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| 74 | |
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| 75 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 76 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 77 | |
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| 78 | This version of Eraser runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, |
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| 79 | 2000, XP and all editions of Vista. Windows XP x64 and all |
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| 80 | 64-bit SKUs of Vista can also be used (using the 64-bit |
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| 81 | version) |
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| 82 | |
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| 83 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 84 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 85 | |
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| 86 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 87 | |
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| 88 | Be sure to uninstall any previous version of Eraser |
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| 89 | before installing. |
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| 90 | |
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| 91 | If the setup program asks you to reboot Windows after |
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| 92 | installation, you must do that before running Eraser. |
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| 93 | |
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| 94 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 95 | |
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| 96 | EraserSetup.exe is a self-extracting executable containing the |
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| 97 | program files. |
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| 98 | |
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| 99 | Run EraserSetup.exe to install Eraser. The setup program will |
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| 100 | extract the files and copy them to a desired location. |
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| 101 | |
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| 102 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 103 | |
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| 104 | After installing, you can open the help file (in the |
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| 105 | Eraser directory) by double-clicking the ERASER.HLP |
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| 106 | file. |
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| 107 | |
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| 108 | You can also get answers to some frequently asked |
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| 109 | questions and read a step-by-step installation |
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| 110 | instructions at Eraser home page (see section 5.1). |
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| 111 | |
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| 112 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 113 | |
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| 114 | You can uninstall Eraser normally via Control Panel, |
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| 115 | Add/Remove Programs. You should not remove the files |
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| 116 | manually because the settings in the registry would not |
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| 117 | be removed. |
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| 118 | |
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| 119 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 120 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 121 | |
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| 122 | Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to |
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| 123 | completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by |
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| 124 | overwriting it several times with carefully selected |
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| 125 | patterns. |
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| 126 | |
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| 127 | You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand |
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| 128 | eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use |
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| 129 | the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused |
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| 130 | disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen |
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| 131 | regularly, at night, during your lunch break, at weekends or |
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| 132 | whenever you like. |
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| 133 | |
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| 134 | The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter |
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| 135 | Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and |
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| 136 | Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively |
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| 137 | remove the magnetic remnants from the hard disk making it |
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| 138 | impossible to recover the data. |
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| 139 | |
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| 140 | Other methods include the one defined in the National |
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| 141 | Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US |
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| 142 | Department of Defense and overwriting with pseudo-random data |
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| 143 | up to one hundred times. |
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| 144 | |
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| 145 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 146 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 147 | |
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| 148 | The new maintainer of this product is the Eraser Project. |
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| 149 | For more information visit |
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| 150 | http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser |
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| 151 | |
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| 152 | Sami Tolvanen, the original author of this software is a |
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| 153 | student in the university of technology in Finland. For |
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| 154 | more information,visit his home page at |
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| 155 | http://www.tolvanen.com/sami/. |
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| 156 | |
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| 157 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 158 | |
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| 159 | You can download the latest version of Eraser and the |
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| 160 | required libraries at the Eraser SourceForge page. |
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| 161 | |
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| 162 | http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=37015 |
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| 163 | |
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| 164 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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