Why do we HAVE "Slow Entropy Polling"

S

spy1

Member
if it only causes problems/doesn't work? (Which has been going on for a long time prior to v.5.8, BTW).

Or is it designed to only work on a specific OS? Personally, I've never been able to figure out what the heck it was supposed to DO (what the benefit of using that setting was, IOW).

If not, are the problems with using it being addressed - or is it simply going to be removed as an option in a forth-coming version? Pete
 
I only use it for wiping freespace, then turn it off. Tried to wipe my browser cashe, after I wasn't able to access the cash. I would get that dreaded hour glass, some how I got to the cashe again, turned off "Slow Entropy Polling" and Erased browser cashe again. I could access the cashe normally again.
 
(From the Eraser program "Help" file):

Pseudorandom Data

Cryptographically strong pseudorandom data used for overwriting is created using the ISAAC (Indirection, Shift, Accumulate, Add and Count) algorithm by Bob Jenkins. The ISAAC generator is reseeded before each task using Eraser’s own multi-source polling random number generator.

The random data generated using ISAAC is guaranteed to have a period length of 2^40 numbers, and the average cycle is 2^8295 32-bit (4-byte) numbers. Therefore, the average amount of data provided by the generator before the sequence starts from the beginning is 4.12e2488 gigabytes (and is at least 4096 gigabytes), which is more than enough for overwriting even the largest hard drives.

The number of overwriting passes for this method is user selectable, the maximum being ((2^16) - 1) = 65535 passes.

For more information, see the source code.

Because the random data is highly incompressible, this is the only method that should be used on compressed drives."

Okay, so does that mean that choosing that particular option will screw you up only if you have an un-compressed drive?

It's not an OS-specific issue? Pete
 
I read the discribtion before, Pseudorandom Data is default for freespace while gutmann is default for file erasing. To me the sentence in bold type means if you have a uncompressed drive you can use Gutmann or Pseudorandom Data, but if you have a Compressed drive you can ONLY use Pseudorandom Data.

There is another bit about (I forgot where it is located) for increased security of freespace you can increase the number of passes of Pseudorandom Data or use the Gutmann method if you have a Uncompressed drive.

To find out if your HD is compressed go MY Computer/Highlight HD then right click properties. There are two boxes at the bottom of the page. First one is "Compress Drive To Save Disk Space", second one is "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast searching".
 
To get back to my original question:

Does the "Slow Entropy Polling" option work? For anyone? On any OS? What does it DO? (Or, what is it supposed to be doing?)

If it does not work, is it being fixed?

If it is not being fixed, is it going to be removed from future versions of Eraser? Pete
 
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