Evidence Eliminator?

[stumpy]

Hi,

 

 

 

Anyone use Evidence Eliminator? Would be interested to hear any thoughts and also what operating system you are using it with...have heard mixed reports about it's performance with NTFS.

 

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

 

 

Stump_Dog.

[iono]

I used EE on Win2000 it worked great however, takes a long time to over write so it's not a tool for quick clean ups. It deinstalled with no problems or bad effects on my registry. I decided not to purchase it, no real need just wanted to try.

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[gobbledonk]

Call me a philistine, but anyone who is really paranoid about security should consider getting something like OpenBSD and doing their homework. Yeah, I realise its beyond the majority of the 'general public', but a lot of people spend so much time delving into the innards of Windows, they may as well be working with an OS that was built with security as its number one priority, and which ships with source code and doco written by people who actually give a shit about your privacy.

 

 

 

I wont get into the whole Linux/Unix advocacy thing - I'm just throwing this up as a suggestion. We are tied to our Windows desktops at work, and things like games make Windows mandatory. Whatever you've got, spend some time checking whats under the hood.

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

 

 

In reply to:

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[color:green]Everything it does you can do yourself with modifications to the autoexec.bat file, a custom .reg file to delete registry entriescolor=green>

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In most cases that is true but programs like EE and Windows Washer do it more efficiently and save a lot of time. I have used both and they save me from having to find out how to clean up after a large number of applications. Programs like Eraser or the comercial BCWipe are still necessary to delete files and file slack with some security.

 

 

 

regards

 

 

 

ALHOLK

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

 

 

As a former BSD (VAX) user and a current Linux user I basically agree with you, but bear in mind that UNIX systems also have loop holes in their security. There is no such thing as a totally secure computer system.

 

 

 

regards

 

 

 

ALHOLK

 

 

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[gobbledonk]

Alkholk,

 

 

 

Absolutely ! Unix is actually criticised heavily for the holes which were deliberately built into it by designers over the years - it has been THE hacker (note I didnt say 'cracker') OS for many years.

 

 

 

The beauty of an Open Source Unix (Linux/*BSD etc) is that everyone has access to the source, and a horde of experienced eyes are passed over every new release, many tryng to find holes and, hopefully, passing them back to the core development team to fix. A lot of the Windows vulnerabilities only seem to come to light when the new release is installed in enough businesses for the crackers to do some real damage.

 

 

 

You are right - there is no such thing as a completely secure OS - the onus rests with the user to surround him/herself with the best tools and current information as possible.

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

 

 

By more efficient I meant that it saves me the effort to find out what and where I have to erase to cover my tracks. As I'm not worried about the police I'm perfectly satisfied with it. I would typically use it when I'm working at a customer. I might want to check the boards or the stockexchange whithout letting the next person using the computer seeing where I have been. I do ofcourse agree that a script would be more efficient if it did the job but I would still have to write it.

 

 

 

The problem with new applications and/or versions migh be easier to solve with Windows Washer as it can use plugins for applications not built into the ariginal system.

 

 

 

regards

 

 

 

ALHOLK

[adikgede]

"Call me a philistine, but ..."

 

 

 

Do philistines use computers? Anways, the primary security benefit of secure Linux/Unix systems is keeping people on the outside out. Any security administrator will tell you that boot access is root access someone who can push the on switch is already in. Even encrypted files systems that are now available on the easiest to use to desktop unix systems (Mandrake 8.2 and SuSE 8.0) will be cracked by any brute force effort backed up by a subpoena. It appears that this is the problem that EE is trying to address, i.e. leaving the workstation in a clean state.

 

 

 

That's not to say that Windows users could not benefit from some form of Unix around (as if they didn't already). Without abandoning all those FPOV blood sports and mountains of broken shareware you could install a headless Unix router on some "obsolete" computer turn it on and leave it alone save to do updates, which are frequent if you are concerned about security. The E-Smith Server www.e-smith.org in particular is easy to install, takes about half an hour start to finish and you end up with a router, firewall, print and files server. As I mentioned earlier Mandrake and SuSE mount encrypted files systems so you could put your SMB shares on the encrypted file system of a local server parked in a closet away from your windows gaming box. Both the above mentioned distributions have easy to set up firewalls, and both have easy to use updaters. SuSE 8 has a novel proxy server "Shopware" www.tik.ee.ch/renhard/~shopware that encrypts data between your SuSE proxy and a remote proxy which means that if you are so evil that the police serve your isp with papers the isp will not have much useful information about you.

 

 

 

 

 

Holes are found in Unix systems all the time, but the patches are usually available long before a large Comapany like MS could get a patch through the PR and Marketing departments. OpenBSD claims that they can usually fix thing in a matter of hours (?). OpenBSD and NetBSD have historically been the most paranoid, but there are probably some hardened Linux distros nowadays also. If you want to see what's inside Gentoo Linux is probably the best OS for that because you build it from scratch when you install it in an even more self explanatory way than say FreeBSD.

 

 

 

However if you need to sanitize your computer from someone who can get to it physically than EE or DB's FAQ are in the best options and they don't require that you face a brave GNU reality. I still think that Linux Care's bootable business card is the best solution if you are concerned about leaving anything behind(save what might be stewing in RAM) as it runs entirely from a cd-rom.