Eraser - Security tool allowing complete removal of sensitive data from your hard drive.

Eraser is the secure file eraser. Heidi Computers Limited is the maintainer of Eraser, a Windows and DOS program that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is FREE software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Your first thought may be that when you delete the file, the data is gone. Not quite, when you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

There are several problems in secure file removal, mostly caused by the use of write cache, construction of the hard disk and the use of data encoding. These problems have been taken into consideration when Eraser was designed, and because of this intuitive design and a simple user interface, you can safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.

A full feature list can be obtained by visiting http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/features.asp

Top reviews from the most popular software sites and magazines confirm that Eraser is one of the best security tools available for Windows. http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/reviews.asp

Eraser works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. It works with any drive including IDE, SCSI and RAID.

Eraser can be downloaded from the Eraser site http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Heidi Computers Limited, the maintainer of Eraser, is based in Ireland and has been providing software solutions to companies since 1989. Heidi Computers Limited is a privately held corporation, providing system development expertise covering all aspects of information technology including project management and product development. Heidi's main business areas include Software Development (including Web Based Applications), eBusiness and Consultancy Solutions.

CONTACT: Finola Brady
Heidi Computers Limited
9 Trafalgar Court
Greystones
Co. Wicklow
Ireland
Phone: +353-1-201-7924
Fax: +353-1-633-5957
E-mail: fbrady@heidi.ie
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