| 1 | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 2 | NOTE: You MUST remove ALL VERSIONS (including BETAS) earlier than |
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| 3 | 5.8.7 before installing this version. |
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| 4 | ================================================================= |
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| 5 | In this Release: Eraser 5.8.8 |
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| 6 | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 7 | - Do not erase sparse, compressed or encrypted files when FL2KB |
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| 8 | erasure is selected to prevent disk corruption. |
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| 9 | - Fix Win32 Eraser builds to be truly Unicode builds. |
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| 10 | - A few 64-bit fixes. |
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| 11 | - Ensure that Eraser uses the latest runtimes packaged with the |
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| 12 | installer. This should fix hangs when using the Context menu. |
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| 13 | - Fixed the About dialog after migrating to Unicode |
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| 14 | - Sign all binaries packaged with the installer |
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| 15 | - Allow erasing UNC paths |
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| 16 | - Fixed memory exhaustion when doing a free space erase for FAT |
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| 17 | drives |
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| 18 | - Migrate non-Unicode custom erasure methods to the Unicode methods |
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| 19 | so that old custom erasure methods are preserved upon upgrade |
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| 20 | - Ensure that Eraser is not running when the Eraser setup is run |
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| 21 | |
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| 22 | ================================================================= |
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| 23 | CONTENTS |
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| 24 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 25 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 26 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 27 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 28 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 29 | 2.1. Libraries |
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| 30 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 31 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 32 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 33 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 34 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 35 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 36 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 37 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 38 | |
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| 39 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 40 | 1. LEGAL |
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| 41 | |
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| 42 | 1.1. Copyright |
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| 43 | |
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| 44 | Eraser Copyright © 2007-2009 by The Eraser Project. All |
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| 45 | rights reserved. |
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| 46 | Eraser Copyright © 2002-2006 by Garrett Trant. All rights |
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| 47 | reserved. |
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| 48 | Eraser Copyright © 1997-2002 by Sami Tolvanen. All rights |
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| 49 | reserved. |
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| 50 | |
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| 51 | By using this software you accept all the terms and |
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| 52 | conditions of the license agreement and disclaimer |
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| 53 | below. |
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| 54 | |
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| 55 | All registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in |
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| 56 | this document are the property of their respective |
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| 57 | holders. |
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| 58 | |
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| 59 | 1.2. License agreement and Disclaimer |
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| 60 | |
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| 61 | This program is free software; you can redistribute it |
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| 62 | and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General |
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| 63 | Public License as published by the Free Software |
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| 64 | Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your |
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| 65 | option) any later version. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | This program is distributed in the hope that it will be |
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| 68 | useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the |
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| 69 | implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A |
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| 70 | PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License |
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| 71 | for more details. |
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| 72 | |
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| 73 | 1.2.1 GNU General Public License |
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| 74 | The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is attached |
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| 75 | in the file COPYING.txt |
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| 76 | |
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| 77 | 1.3. Digital signature |
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| 78 | |
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| 79 | The setup program is signed with an Authenticode signature |
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| 80 | for authenticity verification. |
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| 81 | |
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| 82 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 83 | 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
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| 84 | |
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| 85 | This version of Eraser runs on Windows 2000, XP and all editions |
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| 86 | of Vista. Windows XP x64 and all 64-bit SKUs of Vista can also |
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| 87 | be used (the 64-bit version will be chosen automatically). |
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| 88 | Windows 7 installs may work but Eraser 5 is not supported |
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| 89 | under that platform. |
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| 90 | |
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| 91 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 92 | 3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL |
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| 93 | |
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| 94 | 3.1. Before installing |
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| 95 | |
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| 96 | Be sure to uninstall any previous version of Eraser |
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| 97 | before installing. |
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| 98 | |
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| 99 | If the setup program asks you to reboot Windows after |
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| 100 | installation, you must do that before running Eraser. |
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| 101 | |
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| 102 | 3.2. Installing |
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| 103 | |
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| 104 | This setup file is a self-extracting executable containing |
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| 105 | the program files. |
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| 106 | |
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| 107 | Run EraserSetup.exe to install Eraser. The setup program will |
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| 108 | extract the files and copy them to a desired location. |
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| 109 | |
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| 110 | 3.3. Help? |
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| 111 | |
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| 112 | After installing, you can open the help file (in the |
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| 113 | Eraser directory) by double-clicking the ERASER.HLP |
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| 114 | file. |
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| 115 | |
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| 116 | You can also get answers to some frequently asked |
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| 117 | questions and read a step-by-step installation |
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| 118 | instructions at Eraser home page (see section 5.1). |
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| 119 | |
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| 120 | 3.4. Uninstalling |
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| 121 | |
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| 122 | You can uninstall Eraser normally via Control Panel, |
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| 123 | Add/Remove Programs. You should not remove the files |
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| 124 | manually because the settings in the registry would not |
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| 125 | be removed. |
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| 126 | |
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| 127 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 128 | 4. DESCRIPTION |
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| 129 | |
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| 130 | Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to |
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| 131 | completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by |
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| 132 | overwriting it several times with carefully selected |
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| 133 | patterns. |
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| 134 | |
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| 135 | You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand |
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| 136 | eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use |
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| 137 | the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused |
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| 138 | disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen |
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| 139 | regularly, at night, during your lunch break, at weekends or |
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| 140 | whenever you like. |
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| 141 | |
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| 142 | The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter |
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| 143 | Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and |
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| 144 | Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively |
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| 145 | remove the magnetic remnants from the hard disk making it |
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| 146 | impossible to recover the data. |
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| 147 | |
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| 148 | Other methods include the one defined in the National |
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| 149 | Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US |
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| 150 | Department of Defense and overwriting with pseudo-random data |
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| 151 | up to one hundred times. |
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| 152 | |
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| 153 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| 154 | 5. AUTHOR |
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| 155 | |
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| 156 | The new maintainer of this product is The Eraser Project. |
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| 157 | For more information visit |
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| 158 | http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser |
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| 159 | |
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| 160 | Sami Tolvanen, the original author of this software is a |
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| 161 | student in the university of technology in Finland. For |
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| 162 | more information, visit his home page at |
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| 163 | http://www.tolvanen.com/sami/. |
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| 164 | |
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| 165 | 5.1. Web site |
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| 166 | |
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| 167 | You can download the latest version of Eraser and the |
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| 168 | required libraries at the Eraser SourceForge page. |
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| 169 | |
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| 170 | http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=37015 |
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| 171 | |
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| 172 | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
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