Mareew Free Eraser

[Wolfghost]

Added to TPFC: http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1885

Please vote now !!

[Ruby]

Seems to be a discrepancy in size (uncompressed).
The executable is correct (638 KB) but the library included is 3.89 MB.
The download is 1.69 MB.

[guinness]

Tested: Portable - Voted!

The size uncompressed was 4,737,566 bytes, which was correct.
License.txt - 1,054 bytes
Mareew Free Eraser.exe - 653,824 bytes
qtintf70.dll - 4,082,688 bytes

[webfork]

The site says its GPL'd but I can't find a place to download the source code and based on the descriptions here, source wasn't included in the download.

[Ruby]

The size uncompressed was 4,737,566 bytes, which was correct.

It's since been changed, it originally was at 638KB.

[Ruby]

I just ran some tests on Mareew Free Eraser.

First of all it's a nice GUI, but that tick box 'Visit site Mareew Free Eraser developer' got me the second run.

I inserted a freshly formatted sd card; fat16; Allocation unit size 1,024 bytes.

I created 3 text files cybershredder.txt, mareew.txt, windows.txt.

Inside each file I wrote one line 'This file will be deleted by 'Program name''.

Deleted the files with the program corresponding to their name.

I then ran Recuva and found 2 files (3 ignored); _areew.txt, _indows.txt.

In Recuva options I tick 'Show zero byte files' and there are now 2 'New Text Document.txt' and 1 pvq4CO35adjkFT (CyberShredder) all zero byte files.

The windows.txt file I recovered was identical (58 bytes), the mareew.txt file was 54,946 bytes, pvq4CO35adjkFT (CyberShredder) was 0 bytes (not recoverable).

Code: Select all

Filename: _indows.txt
Path: F:\

Size: 58 bytes (58)

State: Excellent

Creation time: 7/19/2010 20:16

Last modification time: 7/19/2010 20:17

Last access time: 7/19/2010 00:00

Comment: No overwritten clusters detected.

1 cluster(s) allocated at offset 2

Code: Select all

Filename: _areew.txt
Path: F:\

Size: 53.6 KB (54,946)

State: Excellent

Creation time: 7/19/2010 20:18

Last modification time: 7/19/2010 20:24

Last access time: 7/19/2010 00:00

Comment: No overwritten clusters detected.

54 cluster(s) allocated at offset 3

Code: Select all

Filename: pvq4CO35adjkFT
Path: F:\

Size: 0 bytes (0)

State: Unrecoverable

Creation time: 8/2/1997 04:13

Last modification time: 8/2/1997 04:13

Last access time: 8/2/1997 00:00

Comment: No overwritten clusters detected.

I don't know where the 3rd 'New Text Document.txt' ended up, the timestamps on the 2 found correspond with windows.txt and mareew.txt.

Anyway here's the file _areew.txt that that was recovered.

Open with AkelPad to see the true beauty of the shredding scheme.

Just food for thought, the files I created were ~60 bytes (4,096 bytes on disk) this program created a file ~13 times that.

Not sure this is good behavior for removable flash drives.

[webfork]

I just ran some tests on Mareew Free Eraser.

Good to know. Thanks for posting on that.

Not sure this is good behavior for removable flash drives.

Given that most flash drives have a limited number of writes, its probably bad.

[Ruby]

@webfork or anyone else reading this post.

I'm still puzzled buy the 3rd 'New_Text_Document.txt' (renamed cybershredder.txt) not showing up in Recuva.

Each file was created the same way: right-click > 'Text Document', overwrite highlighted 'New_Text_Document'
with new filename > press Enter twice (save & open); enter single line of text, press Enter (CR/LF) and save.

Is it possible that CyberShredder's renaming scheme (file & folders) is the reason the 3rd 'New_Text_Document.txt'
is not showing up in Recuva?

One other thing I forgot to mention previously, the file that Mareew File Eraser erased/overwrote/created
changed from DOS line breaks (CR/LF) to Unix (LF).

[webfork]

Is it possible that CyberShredder's renaming scheme (file & folders) is the reason the 3rd 'New_Text_Document.txt'
is not showing up in Recuva?

Yes. My understanding is that it renames them to some nonsense string and then wipes that. I seem to recall seeing items on my desktop briefly changing to some long string of something like "sd9fjPSIDjf0SKdhf0nsd" before disappearing.

[webfork]

The site says its GPL'd but I can't find a place to download the source code and based on the descriptions here, source wasn't included in the download.

I have contacted the authors. Given that the Eraser project hasn't been portable for a while now, perhaps Mareew will draw more attention.