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Eraser 4.0 (January 24th 2000)
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CONTENTS
1. LEGAL
   1.1. Copyright
   1.2. License agreement
   1.3. Disclaimer
   1.4. Digital signature
2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
   2.1. Libraries
3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL
   3.1. Before installing
   3.2. Installing
   3.3. Help?
   3.4. Uninstalling
4. DESCRIPTION
5. AUTHOR
   5.1. Contacting
   5.2. Web site

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1. LEGAL

   1.1. Copyright

        Eraser Copyright  1997-2000 by Sami Tolvanen. All
        rights reserved.

        By using this software you accept all the terms and
        conditions of the license agreement and disclaimer
        below.

        All registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in
        this document are the property of their respective
        holders.

   1.2. License agreement

        Eraser is a FREEWARE program and must be provided at no
        charge.

        Feel free to share this program with your friends, but
        do not give it away altered or as part of another system
        without permission from the author.

   1.3. Disclaimer

        Eraser is provided on an "AS IS" basis, without warranty
        of any kind either express or implied, including
        warranties of merchantability or fitness for a
        particular purpose.

        In no event will the author be liable to you for
        damages, direct or consequential, which may result from
        the use of this software.

        The user must assume the entire risk of using the
        software.
        
   1.4. Digital signature
                      
        The setup program is signed with Pretty Good Privacy
        (PGP) (public key available at web site) for verifying
        the authenticity. The signature file should be included
        with the archive.

        If you did not receive a separate digital signature file
        with this archive, download the official version
        distribution at the home page (see section 5.2).

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2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

   This version of Eraser runs on Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 and
   later.

   2.1. Libraries

        It may be necessary for you to update the following
        dynamic link libraries before installing Eraser.

        These files were not included in the archive because of
        their size and because they are part of Windows 98 and
        are included with many applications including Internet
        Explorer.

        2.1.1. MFC42.dll and MSVCRT.dll

               You must have Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC)
               Libraries (version 6.00 or later) installed in
               order to use Eraser.

               If you do not have the files installed, or get an
               error message (linked to a missing export...)
               when running the program, you can download (583K)
               the latest versions by following the link below.

               http://www.tolvanen.com/common/mfcdlls.zip

               Unzip the archive after downloading and see
               "readme.txt" for instructions on how to install.

        2.1.2. COMCTL32.dll

               You must have version 4.72 or later version of
               the Windows Common Control Library in order to
               use the new Eraser user interface.

               If you are using Windows 95 or NT and have not
               installed Internet Explorer 4.01 or later, you
               must download an update. Windows 98 comes with
               the updated library.

               You can download the library update (427K)
               from Eraser home page.

               http://www.tolvanen.com/common/401comupd.exe

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3. HOW TO INSTALL & UNINSTALL

   3.1. Before installing

        Be sure to uninstall any previous version of Eraser
        before installing. Also make sure you have the required
        libraries installed before running setup (see section
        2.1).

        If the setup program asks you to reboot Windows after
        installation, you must do that before running Eraser.

   3.2. Installing

        SETUP.EXE is a self-extracting executable containing the
        program files.

        Run SETUP.EXE to install Eraser. The setup program will
        extract the files and copy them to a desired location.

   3.3. Help?

        After installing, you can open the help file (in the
        Eraser directory) by double-clicking the ERASER.HLP
        file.

        If the help file does not answer your question, do not
        hesitate to contact the author (see section 5.1).

        You can also get answers to some frequently asked
        questions and read a step-by-step installation
        instructions at Eraser home page (see section 5.2).

   3.4. Uninstalling

        You can uninstall Eraser normally via Control Panel,
        Add/Remove Programs. You should not remove the files
        manually because the settings in the registry would not
        be removed.

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4. DESCRIPTION

   Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to
   completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by
   overwriting it several times with carefully selected
   patterns.

   You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand
   eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use
   the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused
   disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen
   regularly, at night, during your lunch break, at weekends or
   whenever you like.

   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 the magnetic remnants from the hard disk making it
   impossible to recover the data.

   Other methods include the one defined in the National
   Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US
   Department of Defense and overwriting with pseudo-random data
   up to one hundred times.

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5. AUTHOR

   Sami Tolvanen, the author of this software is a student in
   university of technology in Finland. For more information,
   visit his home page at http://www.iki.fi/st/.

   5.1. Contacting

        Via Internet e-mail, eraser@tolvanen.com.

   5.2. Web site

        You can download the latest version of Eraser and the
        required libraries at Eraser home page.
        
        http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/

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