Fastest & Most secure (at the same time)

D

delicate

New Member
Hi,

if i had to pick a 3 pass method over all 3 pass methods eraser offers in the latest version,
which one of all will give me best results ?.. .

& another question: the british one pass: zero filling isn't supposed to get rid
of the entire file's data by replacing it one time by zeros ?
 
All 3-pass erasures will take the same amount of time. The bottleneck is more often than not the disk drive and not the CPU. However, current sentiments are that one pass is enough for a modern (< 3 year old?) drive.

Yes you are right on the second point.
 
Hi Joel,

-so if i'm right & if all data is filled with zeros, why would people use 3 or 7 passes ?
-and if i choose the british 1 pass method, what's the percentage of data that could "approximately" remain ?
-finally, do all methods as the british one pass include filenames erasure ?
 
It's good to see Joel back on the forum ...

delicate said:
-so if i'm right & if all data is filled with zeros, why would people use 3 or 7 passes ?
Click to expand...
Ignorance or uncertainty. Ignorance, because it used to be thought that more passes was better (as indeed it was on now obsolete types of hard drive), and people haven't caught up with more recent test results on newer hard drives which suggest (quite strongly) that a single pass is all that is needed. Uncertainty, because no-one knows whether or not some new test will show data recovery on a a single pass erase. As I happens, I use the HMG IS5 3 pass method for file (but not for free space) erasing.

delicate said:
-and if i choose the british 1 pass method, what's the percentage of data that could "approximately" remain ?
Click to expand...
According to the best test results available, zero.

delicate said:
-finally, do all methods as the british one pass include filenames erasure ?
Click to expand...
They all include MFT entry erasure. But the NTFS file system is so designed that folder entries can also hold file names, so the file name may be recoverable if the containing folder is not also erased. Moral: if file names contain sensitive data, keep the files in a folder that can be erased.

David
 
Thanks David.

I have a suggestion to the dev .. .

This function would be wonderful:

When i start windows, before reaching my desktop & before the erasure process,
i want to be able to Escape the process using a key combination, ex: "ctrl+..."
whatever combination i want, while disallowing & restricting the option for anyone
to force the computer to enter windows using the esc key, before the total
erasure process .. .

I don't know how win7 works, but in my win98 days, i could escape autoexec
files during the" dos to win" booting process, even before they would start
using the esc key .. .

So if eraser is configured to start before reaching the windows desktop,
could i use the esc key before the auto execution of eraser, or would
the win7 booting process disallow me to escape before autoexec files
started ?

if win7 would disallow me to do that, then the update could be added
to eraser to prevent the use of the esc key. Otherwise .. .

I guess i would need a solution to prevent generally, the use of esc
key during the booting process "Only", and not under the windows
environment (once i've reached my desktop) .. .

------

& another question:

WIll you implement a cleaning job manager with many suggestions
to select, like for the general win environment, the browser, etc .. .

Like in Xleaner.

The benefit: The eraser will control what to delete & and if an entire file
should be deleted or just a part of the file so that the function of firefox
for ex isn't altered because of other missing entires, and the auto detection
of profiles, folders .. .
 
delicate said:
So if eraser is configured to start before reaching the windows desktop,
could i use the esc key before the auto execution of eraser, or would
the win7 booting process disallow me to escape before autoexec files
started ?

if win7 would disallow me to do that, then the update could be added
to eraser to prevent the use of the esc key. Otherwise .. .

I guess i would need a solution to prevent generally, the use of esc
key during the booting process "Only", and not under the windows
environment (once i've reached my desktop) .. .
Click to expand...
Eraser requires Windows to run, so unfortunately this suggestion is not too feasible.

delicate said:
WIll you implement a cleaning job manager with many suggestions
to select, like for the general win environment, the browser, etc .. .
Click to expand...
This is planned for 6.2
 
Do you know how i can map the esc key only during the booting process in win7 ?

if i can do that, it's wonderful, what you could do then, while eraser works
under windows before my desktop appears (eraser isn't supposed to work
if set to be run on startup, When the desktop appears, otherwise, some
files & viruses can auto protect themelves, so when you tell me it needs
to run under windows, you're refering yourself to the first loading of minimal
windows components .. .) What you can do is to prevent while running on
startup to be escaped while it is "erasing", now .. . before the erasure
process, i have to find a way to temporarily map the esc key, but that
would be senseless if eraser isn't updated to avoid escape processes
while running during the windows booting process .. .
 
Eraser is not designed to defeat malware, you have other tools available which can do that and probably better than eraser ever can.

I don't really understand what you are trying to do by "escaping" the boot process: anything before the Windows logon screen is run is a native (NT) application and the Win32 api is not available for use. That requires a native application running under a very restrictive set of APIs -- which Eraser is not designed to do.
 
ok .. . you're telling me that now, eraser runs in portable mode only since you have made it portable,
and that the dos initial releases which could delete protected files has been abandoned .. .

in that case, i Must abandon new versions of eraser & find back the dos version to run it
in autoexec.nt, otherwise, the cleaning/erasing process is obsolete ..... .

erasing: cleaning sensitive data .. .
& for my part .. . protected or not.

& i don't need eraser to simply delete files under windows ..... .
 
This completely confuses me.

Firstly, I don't understand what you mean by 'portable'. Are you using the portable version of Eraser 5.8.8? There isn't a portable version of Eraser 6. And, as far as I know, the 5.8.8 portable version always required the full Windows API to run.

Also, I cannot see how Eraser could be 'obsolete'. While the need to run under Windows (which is what most users want and need) certainly creates limitations, Eraser 6 uses current programming tools and is intended to work with the current Windows security model, so its technology and approach are hardly superseded (which is what the word 'obsolete' typically implies).

If all you mean is that Eraser won't do what you want it to do, that may well be as much a function of the way Windows is designed (I don't imagine that your intentions would be warmly approved within Microsoft) as of anything in the Eraser code. As a security/privacy tool, Eraser can do pretty much all that it needs to do running in the full Windows environment. Hopefully, it will do this a bit more smoothly in version 6.2.

David
 
This conversation is aimless.

& by "portable", I meant "windows gui" .. .

But this conversation is aimless because you're both obsessed with the idea of restricting file erasure processes
in your updates & forcing eraser to always run in a WINDOWS PROTECTED mode .. .

Like i told you, i'll try to find a very old & latest dos version of eraser, the gui version & exclusion of dos version
in actual setups is a downgrade to my eyes & for the main objective of this kind of tool .. .

Since i cannot use actual versions with autoexec.nt

& erase simply this:

"whatever i want with total & free control".

So i have to find back the latest "eraserd.exe"
 
Well, 'obsessed' is a strong word, and hardly applies to Joel or me. The purpose of this forum is to support Eraser as it is. As I had no hand in the design decisions, I take them as read.

I'm glad Eraser 5.7 meets your need. Incidentally, the official download point for it is the Eraser 5 downloads page on Sourceforge. It is very difficult to know how reliable file hosting sites are.

David
 
I wish you'll implement that sooner, i definitely abandoned cc cleaner, cause some flamers found that insecure
to schedule free space & i tried to persuade the devs that it's an option, not an imperative, nobody's obliged
to schedule free space & we're not children, so nobody's forced to program scheduling which would be an
"option" .. . but because an inbred was scared to program a schedule & wipe data by mistake, the devs
abandoned the option that eraser always had .. . that's why i had abandoned cc cleaner forever, because
of a regressive & nonsensical attitude from a specific user that complains about a suggestion out of the blue
without benefit & the immature rejection of the devs for good.

& that's the best way to kill a hard drive .. .
"Being compelled to wipe a hd's deleted data each time a pc would restart, along with other temp files
that the program proposes in a list, if someone ever uses an auto cleaning mode, instead of programming
it once every week or 2 weeks on a day users do not use the pc for example .. ."

Anyways, i'm posting this message to ask you to please introduce what i proposed & requested
months ago as soon "as possible", cause it would take me forever to build an entire list myself
without knowing where some temp files for specific programs are located in the hd, & i can't
use eraser without that .. .

I hope it won't take forever ((

------
delicate wrote:WIll you implement a cleaning job manager with many suggestions
to select, like for the general win environment, the browser, etc .. .

This is planned for 6.2
-------
 
There are a couple of points to make here.

Firstly about CCleaner, which is a program with many capabilities. Any contention that it is 'not secure' needs a specific description of a specific problem; without such a description, no credence should be given to the judgement made. (This also applies to Eraser and other programs, of course.) Prior to version 3, CCleaner had no erase options; it only deleted files, and so did not offer secure data removal; now it has the options to overwrite the files it deletes and also to erase free space on the drive. Some of its capabilities overlap with those of Eraser, but for the most part I regard them as complementary, and I use them both.

Next about the idea of Eraser plugins to erase the clutter associated with Internet browsers and the like. I like this idea very much, but it is only a means to do rather more easily what Eraser does already. Joel has already mapped out the core priority for Eraser 6.2 as changing the way it works to reduce the number of potential conflicts with the OS, so that the basic erasing processes produce fewer issues for the user. This, as Joel has explained, is a significant task, requiring man months of work (are we still allowed to say that in these politically correct times?). So, depending on the amount of time Joel has, the plugins may not make it into the first release of 6.2. In any event, we are going to have to be patient.

That said, I strongly agree with the point I think you are making that over frequent erasing of free space on a drive will tend to shorten its lifespan. That is why I do most of my Eraser testing on a reserve machine which is not mission critical.

David
 
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