SHREDR PLUS Copyright 1990,1991 DO NOT STAMP Software All Rights Reserved Software Version 3.0 October 26, 1991 Documentation revised October 27, 1991 Note: Shredr Plus is distributed as shareware. If you find yourself using the program then you are obligated to pay for it. The suggested shareware donation is five dollars ($5.00 US). If you send that amount you will receive my gratitude and personal satisfaction in knowing that you are supporting the Atari ST shareware market. If you send ten dollars ($10.00 US) you will also receive all a disk containing the latest versions of other Atari ST utilities from DNS Software. As of this writing the disk you'll receive includes: Area Code Locator Locates and identifies *all* telephone area codes for the US and Canada. Shows selected cities within area codes, and the current time in each location. Runs in all resolutions, as a desk accessory or program. PoSTal Identifies postal abbreviations for states and provinces in North America. Also includes limited support for zip codes within each area. Runs in medium or high resolution, as a program or desk accessory. Hot!Stat This is an analysis tool to be used in conjunction with the program ledgering feature of HotWire from CodeHead Software. Compiles daily, weekly, or monthly statistics with report writing to screen, disk, or printer. Runs in medium or high resolution. Requires a source for HotWire ledgers in order to be useful. ST Medium and High resolution. DNS-S.A.A.S Still Another Archive Shell for the Atari ST/TT. This program is designed to archive wildcard-selected with just a few simple clicks of your mouse. Perfect for archiving all of your drawings or text files on a monthly or weekly basis. Will work with any .TTP variety of archive utility (such as ARC or LZH) which you must supply. ST Medium and High resolution. Wait_Time ST Use Wait_Time to schedule, or delay, the execution of any program. Use to have your ST/TT execute programs at night, such as printing files or accessing online services, while you sleep. Designed for use with Hotwire, but will work with other shell programs that allow you execute programs in sequence. Any resolution. Tap2QC Email Address Manager If you use either TapCIS (MS-DOS) or QuickCIS (Atari ST), or both, this program will help you manage your email address books. It will allow you to combine, clean, or convert your existing address lists to either format. ST Medium and High resolution. In addition to all these programs, you'll also receive the latest version of Shredr Plus. Your $10.00 will also entitle you to free lifetime updates to *all* the utilities. Anytime a program is updated you'll be notified via postcard that a new version is available. Simply return your disk (or any other pre-formatted ST disk) and it'll be sent right back with the latest goodies. Send your order to: Do Not Stamp Software PO Box 781 Park Ridge, IL USA 60068-0781 Checks and Money Order in US funds please, made payable to DO NOT STAMP SOFTWARE. Overseas? Contact us if you'd like to make other arrangements. Programs are supplied on a 360K (single-sided) 3.5" diskette, in compressed form. Decompression software is included. ======================================================================== About Shredr Plus: Purpose: Shredr Plus is for privacy and protection. Normally when a file is deleted by the ST operating system (TOS) it can actually remain on the disk for quite some time. This is because deleted files are only flagged as being "disposable", that is, the space is identified as being no longer needed and free to be used by other files if required. The file will stay on the disk until its space is reused by a new file. If you delete a large file from the disk, and then never fully fill the disk with new files, fragments of your original file could remain and be vulnerable to snooping by someone using a sector editor. Now admittedly the fact that deleted files are not really overwritten can work to your advantage. Say you accidentally delete a file and then later discover that you meant to save it. Using an "un-delete" program it may be possible to recover the original file provided that the space it occupied hasn't been reused by a new file. Thus this feature can, under some circumstances, provide a useful "safety net" for your important files. However, if the file you think you are deleting contains sensitive or personal information (such as financial records or personal correspondence) it may be important that all of the file, and all the information it contains, is permanently deleted. Think about it for a moment. Have you ever erased files on an old disk, then reused that disk to copy some public domain programs for your friend or user group? If that disk originally held personal files it is possible that whoever you give that disk to could recover some of that information you were so careful to "erase"! Shredr Plus is the answer to your problems. When you are absolutely, positively sure that you want to erase a file, *permanently*, use it to do the job. Shredr Plus will open your file and overwrite each and every sector with garbage characters, totally jumbling the contents of the original file. It will be virtually impossible to ever recover a file that has been "shredded" with this program. (Disclaimer: Hard drive manufacturers and the NSA have been known to be able to recover information even after it has been overwritten. But such techniques are not readily available to the average computer user.) Features: * Compatible with Atari ST/TT. * Random or user specified characters used in overwriting file. * Can overwrite each file multiple times, for even more security. * Renames file before deletion, preventing even the original file name from being discovered! * User selected configuration is saved and recalled for each session. Can be changed at any time. * Fully supports wildcard characters in file names. Shred multiple files in one operation. * Speed of operation has been doubled from earlier version. * Fail safe design gives two chances to "bail out" before any destructive actions take place. NEW FEATURES FOR VERSION 2.1 * Will accept file names passed from ST shell program, with the option of skipping all 'bail out' warnings. For confident users who demand quick and efficient performance. * Configuration option for five overwrites, in accordance with recommendations from the National Computer Security Center. NEW FEATURES FOR VERSION 3.0 * Speed has been increased, again! This version is over three times faster than version 2.1. * Support the MaxiFile III "backdoor" for selection of multiple files. * Program size has been reduced by nearly half. Takes up less room on your hard drive or diskettes. * All new GEM interface. Contents of this archive: The following files are included in this distribution. SHREDRPL.PRG - the program SHREDRPL.RSC - GEM resource file for the above program SHREDRPL.TXT - this documentation README.TXT - late-breaking news about this program Noncommercial distribution of Shredr Plus is allowed and encouraged. Feel free to make copies for your friends and upload it to bulletin board services. However, commercial distribution of this program is prohibited. Give it away, but don't sell it! Shredr Plus may be included on public domain library diskettes as long as it is grouped with programs by other authors. This documentation file, and all files listed above, must be included with any distribution. Shredr Plus and associated files are copyrighted, but may be distributed freely under the above specified conditions. DISCLAIMER AND WARNING: While Shredr Plus has been tested and proven to be safe and effective there is no warranty as to its performance or fitness for a specific purpose. It uses only standard system calls and should not, under normal circumstances, do anything nasty to your system. However the user assumes all risks and damages associated with using it. The bottom line is this: I'm not a lawyer. I trust this program and use it often. I think you'll like it too. But if it doesn't perform as you expect or causes you to accidentally erase a file, I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do. The potential for danger is present, and you've been warned. In case it hasn't been made clear to you what this program does, let me restate it: THIS PROGRAM WILL TOTALLY RUIN ANY FILE YOU SELECT. USE IT WITH CAUTION AS ONCE SOMETHING IS SHREDDED IT IS GONE FOREVER. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ERASING THE FILE YOU THINK YOU ARE ERASING. Using Shredr Plus Note: SHREDRPL.PRG and SHREDRPL.RSC must be in the same directory on your diskette for hard drive. If Shredr Plus is unable to find it's .RSC file it will refuse to operate. Click on SHREDRPL.PRG to get things going. The first time you run the program a box will appear with the message "Randomizing Overwrite String, one moment please". This box will stay on the screen a few seconds while the program creates a random collection of characters that will be used to overwrite any of the files you select in this session. After a few moments the Shredr Plus main menu will appear. The menu is a small box containing three "buttons." Each of these items has a different function. "SHRED" button: Left-click on this button and the standard ST file selector will appear. Use this selector to pick the files you wish to shred. Wildcard characters (* and ?) may be used to match a variety of files. (If you don't know how to do this, Shredr Plus is NOT the place to learn. Basically it will let you erase several files all at once.) Double-clicking on this button will activate MaxiFile III, if it is currently installed in your ST/TT. See "shredding a file" later in this document for more information. Help: Left-click this button for program information and configuration options. Selecting "configure..." from the second box that appears will allow you to change the various settings. See "set up" later in this document for more information. Quit: Left-click this button to exit Shredr Plus. You'll be asked to confirm that you do indeed wish to exit. Select "go back" if you want don't want to quit quite yet. Pressing RETURN on your keyboard is the same as clicking on the Quit button. Shredding a file: Step 1: Left-click on the "SHRED" button located in the center of the main menu. Step 2: A file selector box will appear. Use this box to select the file you wish to shred. If you're not sure how to use the file selector box consult your Atari ST owner's guide. (Although if you're not sure how to do this then you should reconsider using Shredr Plus. This is not a program for beginners as you could delete something you should be keeping!) If you have an alternate file selector installed, such as UIS III, it will be used instead of the standard selector. Double-clicking on this button will call CodeHead's MaxiFile III desk accessory if it is currently installed in your computer. You may select files in MaxiFile III and they will be acted upon by Shredr Plus when you exit MaxiFile. Step 3: Shredr Plus will check the amount of free space on the drive where the selected file resides. Because Shredr Plus overwrites files two clusters at time for speed, it requires that at least 4096 bytes (4k) be available on the disk. Note that on some hard drives, when using early versions of TOS, this disk space check can take a few seconds. Step 4: Providing there was enough free space on the disk you'll next be given two chances to forgo the shredding procedure. This is a good time to reflect upon your selections and make sure that you really do not need the selected file(s) any longer. Select "abort" to save your file(s) from total destruction. Step 5: After passing the two confirmation boxes the program will leap into action. A box will appear on the screen telling you which file is being shredded (this is useful if you used wildcard characters to select multiple files), how many times it will be overwritten, and how much of the current shredding pass remains to be completed. You'll see each of these numbers change as Shredr Plus progresses through the tasks you have selected. Step 6: If for some reason you decide that you want to stop the shredding of the current file you may hold down the UNDO key. This will abort the shredding at the completion of the current cluster overwrite. Note however that if you've let the program get this far that at least part of your file will be destroyed. Pressing and holding UNDO will prevent the filename from being changed or erased, so you may be able to recover at least some of the original file. If you do hold UNDO, an alert box will appear reminding you of the questionable condition of the file. Step 7: Provided that you didn't abort the action the "now shredding" progress box will disappear from your screen and you'll be back at the main menu. Select Exit to leave Shredr Plus or click on the shred button again to select more files to delete. Set Up Shredr Plus has two user definable options. The following settings may be altered to your liking: Number of times to overwrite a file. Normally each selected file is overwritten (or "shredded") once. It is possible to overwrite each file up to five times in a row for additional security. Overwrite Text: The default setting for Shredr Plus is to generate a random string of characters. These are the characters that will replace the contents of your original file. In most cases you'll probably want to keep this option as random characters, it provides an extra level of security in keeping your shredded files private. However, it is possible to provide Shredr Plus with a custom character collection. This can be anything from pure garbage characters (i.e. , %Fj9X#) or a special message that will be readable by anyone who is examining the disk sectors where your file once lived (i.e. , "Hey, this file has been Shredded!"). If you wish to provide your own text then select "custom" from the Select Overwrite Text dialog box. A small window will appear allowing you to enter up to 150 characters. These characters will be used by Shredr Plus to overwrite files. Note that if you have previously configured Shredr Plus with a custom overwrite text string your previous entry will be displayed for you to edit if desired. You may notice that the text you entered appears slightly different, this is because Shredr Plus has converted and concatenated your text to form a long string of characters suitable for efficient processing. Once you have entered a set of overwrite characters Shredr Plus will save your settings to a disk file called SHREDR.INF. These settings will be loaded next time you use the program as long as this file is available. If you no longer desire these settings to be in effect then either reset the configuration using the Set Up instructions just discussed, or erase the SHREDR.INF file from your disk (you may shred it if you like!) If a configuration file is not found then Shredr Plus will use the built-in, default settings. The default settings are to overwrite each file once, using random characters. Note: Configuration files (SHREDR.INF) from earlier versions of Shredr Plus are not compatible with version 3.0 If you have an old configuration file in the same folder as Shredr Plus v3.0 the program will notify you that it is invalid. You should either delete the old .INF file, or create a new one by selection "configure" as described above. New Features for version 2.1 Command Line: Shredr Plus will now accept a file name (complete with wildcard characters if desired) for immediate action upon the file(s) specified. Do not confuse this ability with a .TTP (TOS Takes Parameters) type of program. Shredr Plus will not function if renamed to a .TTP file. To pass Shredr Plus a file name/template you must use a command line interpreter or other 'shell' program. The format for the command line is as follows: shredrpl.prg filename [-nw] example: C:\PRIVATE.TXT -NW In this example the file PRIVATE.TXT, in the root directory of drive C:, will be shredded immediately upon execution of Shredr Plus. The '-NW' flag is optional and must appear after the filename. When present it stands for 'no warning' and causes Shredr Plus to skip the usual warnings that would allow the shredding to be aborted before it begins. Use the -NW switch with extreme caution! It is a powerful option, but can delete many files by accident if sloppily used. If the flag is omitted, you will still be given two chances to abort the shredding of the selected file(s). The command line option of Shredr Plus has been specifically designed to be used with Hotwire (a commercial product of CodeHead Software). Shredr Plus can be 'chained' to other programs, and by using the 'GEM Program' and 'Command Line' option in the Hotwire menu entry it will process any file as needed. One example application of this feature would be to chain Shredr Plus, with a preset command line, to delete .BAK files created by Word Perfect. When formulating your command line be sure and specify the full path of the file you wish erased, unless it resides in the same directory as Shredr Plus. Hotwire makes this especially easy with its 'file selector' button on the command line specification dialog. If the file specified is not found, or the disk does not have enough free space available to process the file, Shredr Plus will exit without action. If you abort a shredding in process (by pressing the UNDO key) you will still receive an alert box notifying you of the condition of the file. This alert box will appear regardless of the '-nw' switch. Although the command line ability was designed with Hotwire in mind, it has been verified to function properly with the CLI.ACC by Jeff Wilson, published in STart magazine. It is *not* possible to install Shredr Plus as an application on the GEM desktop, but it will accept documents installed via Hotwire. Additionally, Shredr Plus will function as a GTP (GEM Takes Parameters) program when used with Atari's so-called "NewDesk" desktop on STE's and TT's. NCSC Standards: The configuration section of Shredr Plus now allows each file to be overwritten a total of five times. This is in accordance with data security recommendations published by the N.I.S.T. and the National Computer Security Center. For maximum security, select this option in the configuration section. New features for version 3.0 As mentioned earlier, Shredr Plus now supports MaxiFile III, the file maintenance tool from CodeHead Software. To use this feature you must have MaxiFile III installed as a desk accessory. Double-click on the "shred" button to use MaxiFile III to select the programs to shred. Highlight the files you wish to shred in the source window, and click on the exit button to return to Shredr Plus. If you don't select any files Shredr Plus will not take any action. The new GEM interface has prompted the removal of the "alert box" mode of earlier versions of Shredr Plus. This mode was mostly needed for the TT, with which the old graphic menu wasn't compatible. The new interface has not only resolved this problem, but has reduced the program size by almost half. You'll find that the "shredding" speed has increased substantially. My tests show this version is well over 200% faster than v2.1, enjoy! Conclusion: Shredr Plus has been designed to be easy and intuitive to use. This rather lengthy explanation has been included to point out the features and options that are available. Please, if you discover any quirks, errors, or bugs when using this program do let me know. I will update the code to correct the problem and release a corrected version. Likewise, if you have any suggestions that would make Shredr Plus more useful to you please let me know that too! This program is only as good as the feedback it receives from those who use it. Bug reports, comments, suggestions, and shareware payments can be sent to: Do Not Stamp Software PO Box 781 Park Ridge, IL USA 60068-0781 Send electronic mail to: Compuserve: 72307,1502 GEnie: GRMEYER Delphi: GRMEYER Internet: 72307.1502@compuserve.com Thanks for your support, and happy shredding! Shedr is a trademark of DO NOT STAMP Software. MaxiFile III is a trademark of CodeHead Software. Special thanks to CodeHead for the source code and information necessary to interface with their fine program. EOF