SHREDR PLUS Copyright 1990 DO NOT STAMP Software All Rights Reserved Version 2.0 9/23/90 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 undying 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 receive all of the above plus 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 medium or high resolution, as a program or desk accessory. 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. In addition to the four programs on the disk, (yes, four! You'll also receive the latest version of Shredr Plus) your donation of $10.00 will 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 contribution to: Do Not Stamp Software PO Box 467 Des Plaines, IL 60016 ======================================================================== About Shredr Plus: Purpose: Shredr Plus is about privacy and protection. Normally when a file is deleted by the ST operating system 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 itself therefore 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 accidently 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 comfortable "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"! And imagine if you were selling off an old hard drive! Just think of all the information that may be lurking in the 30 megabytes of sectors you have there! Shredr Plus is the answer to your problems. When you are absolutely, positively sure that you want to erase a file, *forever*, 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 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 regardless of how many times the file has been overwritten. But such techniques are not available to the average computer user so don't loose too much sleep over it...) Features: * Medium or High (ST) resolution compatible. * Mouse or Keyboard controlled. * Random or user specified characters used in overwriting file. * Can overwrite each file from one to three times. * Renames file before deletion, preventing even the original file name from being discovered! * Two interfaces available. Graphic or "alert box" style. * 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. * Graphical progress bar shows current action of the program, and allows aborting of any shred in progress. * Fail safe design gives two chances to "bail out" before any destructive actions take place. Contents of this archive: The following files are included in this distribution. SHREDRPL.PRG - the program SHREDRPL.TXT - this documentation Non-commercial 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! Please be sure and include this documentation file will all copies that you give away. Shredr Plus and associated files are copyrighted, but may be distributed freely under the above specified conditions. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: 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 accidently 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..okay? I wouldn't even put this disclaimer in here but you never know about some people. 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 DARN SURE YOU ARE ERASING THE FILE YOU THINK YOU ARE ERASING. Using Shredr Plus 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 items: a drawing of a shredding machine, the words DNS Software, and a box marked EXIT. Each of these items has a different function. Shredding Machine: Click either mouse button on this picture (or press the "S" key on your keyboard) and a 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.) Selecting Cancel will return you to the main menu. DNS Software: Click either mouse button in this area for program information and configuration options. Pressing the HELP key will also trigger this action. Select "set up" from the third box that appears to change the various settings. See "set up" later in this document for more information. Exit: Click either mouse button in this box to quit Shredr Plus. You'll be asked if you meant to click here before exiting, 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 Exit box. Note that clicking anywhere else on the screen, other than on one of the three areas described above, will have no effect. Shredding a file: Step 1: Click either mouse button on the picture of the shredding machine. 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!) Step 3: Shredr Plus will check the amount of free space on the drive where the selected file resides. Because Shredr Plus overwrites files a cluster at time for speed, it requires that at least 2048 bytes (2k) be available on the disk. Note that on some hard drives 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 and make sure that you really do not need the selected file any longer. Select "abort" to save your file from total destruction. Step 5: After passing the two "are you sure?" 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) and a smaller box will be near the top of the screen showing the amount of the file left to be shred. As the file is over- written this "progress box" will fill-in, allowing you to estimate how much longer the operation will take. Note: The default setting for Shredr Plus is to "shred" each file one time. If you change this setting via Set Up (see below) you'll see the file name and progress box once for each time the file is overwritten. Step 6: If for some reason you decide that you want to stop the shredding of the current file you may press 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 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 press 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" and 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 shredding machine again to shred another file. Set Up Shredr Plus has three 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 three times in a row for additional security. Menu Style: Shredr Plus defaults to using the graphic menu described above. It is also possible to operate the program using standard GEM alert boxes. There is no advantage to either method, it is a matter of personal choice. Note that if the "alert box" mode is selected the keyboard commands discussed above ("s", HELP, and RETURN) will no longer function. Regardless of which menu style you select Shredr Plus will perform the same functions. Overwrite Text: The default setting for Shredr Plus is to generate a random string of 146 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 provide 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 (eg: %Fj9X#) or a special message that will be readable by anyone who is examining the disk sectors where your file once lived (eg: 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 146 characters. If you enter less than 146 then Shredr Plus will automatically append the text to itself, until that length is reached. 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. The standard ST editing keys are active. Once you have selected 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. 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 donations can be sent to: Do Not Stamp Software PO Box 467 Des Plaines, IL USA 60016 Send electronic mail to: Compuserve: 72307,1502 GEnie: GRMEYER Delphi: GRMEYER Internet: 72307.1502@compuserve.com Thanks for your support, and happy shredding! EOF