New Program: Doc Scrubber 1.0 released!

Discussion in 'SpywareBlaster & Other Forum' started by javacool, Nov 2, 2003.

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  1. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

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    I'm happy to announce the release of a new program: Doc Scrubber!

    Background: Every Word document contains a significant amount of "extra" data. This "metadata", as it is sometimes called, can reveal things you might not want someone knowing: who edited a file, where it was saved, the last time it was saved (and by whom), the total time spent editing a document, a unique GUID that identifies the author, the last time the document was printed, the number of times it was revised, and more...

    Further (Interesting) Reading: Microsoft Word bytes Tony Blair in the butt

    Description: Doc Scrubber allows you to quickly and easily analyze Word documents to see metadata that they contain, and remove/clear all kinds of metadata from them, including the hidden revision log (see article above for more information).

    License: Doc Scrubber is free for personal and educational use! :) (Business users must purchase a license - more information can be found on the Doc Scrubber webpage.)

    For more information and download please visit:
    http://www.docscrubber.com/

    Enjoy! :D

    -Javacool

    P.S. If you have any questions, comments, bug reports, or problems, please post at the official forums: http://www.wilderssecurity.com (right here! ;)).
     
  2. spydespiser

    spydespiser Registered Member

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    Re:Doc Scrubber 1.0 released!

    Hi Javacool :)

    Lovely stuff, and thank you for all the great proggies you keep coming up with :D

    SpyD :cool:
     
  3. hayc59

    hayc59 Guest

    Re:Doc Scrubber 1.0 released!

    I second that!! thanks J.Cool ;)
     
  4. Pretender

    Pretender Registered Member

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    I don't use Word enough to worry about it, but it looks like a great program for those that do! ;)
     
  5. Pastork

    Pastork Registered Member

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    I have begun using OpenOffice almost exclusively. Do you have any plans for adding functionality for OpenOffice documents?
     
  6. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

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    I certainly have plans for expanding Doc Scrubber in the future, and that would be an interesting feature to add. :D I'll have to check and see what, if any, hidden data they contain, however (for all I know at this point, they may be completely clean).

    Best regards,

    -Javacool
     
  7. pe_ga

    pe_ga Guest

    Hi,
    I would like to refer to my posting in grc.news.latestversions (news:bo80h9.cm.1@kretzschmar-gahbler.de): Is there a real reason why admin rights are needed?

    Bye
    Peter
     
  8. Maximilien

    Maximilien Guest

    I second the question about the administrative rights.

    A suggestion now: there should be a button on the "Scrub" window to set all the "scrub settings" as marked. Often I think you only want to preserve one or two fields and wish to remove all the rest. Today that requires something like 10 clicks!

    Apart from that it seems the program is working nicely.
     
  9. Win98 User

    Win98 User Guest

    I've used Guideon to clear GUID from docs, but it was limited, so I was glad to find Doc Scrubber listed in a freeware newsgroup.

    During testing of Doc Scrubber, I found that nothing was being removed except for the GUID, Recent Hyperlinks List (maybe, not sure because the tested docs didn't have any), and the Revision Log.

    Before posting, I checked the Help file which had the following disclaimer:

    NOTE TO WINDOWS 95, 98, ME USERS:
    Some items on the Scrub Settings screen may be disabled. Those disabled items cannot be cleaned on Windows 95, 98 or ME.
    Full cleaning options are available on Windows NT 4, 2000, XP.

    I use Win98 on the machine where I installed Doc Scrubber, and although only 3 items were scrubbed, none of the other options were disabled as mentioned in the disclaimer. The screen of options is presented as if all options are available to the user.
     
  10. nameless

    nameless Registered Member

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    Regarding OpenOffice.org... (and a little OT, perhaps)... Be wary of using it exclusively. I run the latest version of OpenOffice.org, yet it is not 100% compatible with Word (not even close, in my opinion). I have edited resumes in OpenOffice.org, only to find that page breaks and other data appeared differently than they did in Word. Can you imagine editing a resume in OpenOffice.org, then sending it to a company representative who loads it into Word, and having that resume appear to them with page breaks in the wrong spots?
     
  11. Pastork

    Pastork Registered Member

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    Your point is well-taken. I will keep that in mind when I may need to share documents with Word users.
     
  12. TombstoneTim

    TombstoneTim Registered Member

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    Location:
    Georgia, USA
    Thanks JavaCool!
    Just tried it out and Doc Scrubber works great.
    I didn't realize so much personal info was contained in Word Docs.
    Appreciate all your efforts to keep us protected!

    I have a couple of questions.
    It concerns Outlook users who create an e-mail message using Microsoft Word as the composer.
    Would this sent e-mail message have the hidden meta data tags in it?
    If so, can Doc Scrubber be used to clean it?

    Thanks,
    and best wishes,
    Tim
     
  13. pe_ga

    pe_ga Guest

    Hi,
    I am still interested in an explanation why the program requests admin rights. No answer?

    Bye
    Peter
     
  14. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

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    My apologies for the late reply.

    To ensure that the installation proceeds smoothly, that flag was set in the setup program. (As the installer needs to install certain .dlls and other support files, register them, etc. If the support files and dlls do not install correctly, there can be serious problems when trying to use the program.) Running the program itself does not require administrator or poweruser rights, of course.

    A quote from MS:

    Hopefully that answers your question? (Again, it was just set that way to help ensure the greatest number of problem-free installations.) :)

    Best regards,

    -Javacool
     
  15. SuperP

    SuperP Registered Member

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    Location:
    Western Australia
    Hi Javacool
    Doc Scrubber seems to be a most worthwhile program. I used it several times on old documents and was impressed with its performance.
    For your information, not complaining, today I applied it with all boxes checked and saved over the file. Word had real trouble re-opening it and locked up on several attempts. Eventually a recovery was successful.
    After I had restored the document formatting I tried the same procedure again, this time with even worse results. After a number of attempted recoveries that failed with Word locking up, eventually the document was retrieved with formatting intact!
    I do hope you are able to reproduce this or explain possible finger trouble on my part.
    :rolleyes:
    XP pro
    Word 2002
     
  16. javacool

    javacool BrightFort Moderator

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    Is there any chance you could send either a corrupted version of that document or even better (and only if you didn't check the "save file over original box") the original? That is, if the document doesn't contain personal information (anything contained within would be kept in strict confidence, I can assure you, and the document would be used to reproduce the problem only - but if there is personal information and you don't feel comfortable with sending it I understand.)

    If you are able to send either of the above, the address is: bugreports@javacoolsoftware.com

    Best regards and thanks,

    -Javacool
     
  17. SuperP

    SuperP Registered Member

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    Location:
    Western Australia
    Thanks for the follow up Javacool. I have sent a pre-scrub and
    post-scrub version of my file to the address as requested.

    I'm looking forward to any result you might come up with.

    All the very best with your great work.
     
  18. jcouture

    jcouture Registered Member

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    Location:
    Omaha, Nebraska, USA
    Hi JavaCool. Great App. I have a few small bugs to report.

    1. The first time I use Browse for folder, it takes a LONG time to display folder browser dialog since I'm connected to a network.

    2. Manually typing a folder name in the "Scrub All Word Documents in a Specific Folder" dialog does not change the directory being scrubbed. For example: If I browsed to "C:\Docs" and scrubbed the documents contained there and then simply typed "C:\Docs\Personal" to scrub those documents, I still end up scrubbing the "C:\Docs" documents.

    3. It would be nice if the Browse Directory dialog remembered the last directory you were in when you run through the scrub wizard again.

    That's it. Thanks for writing this excellent app. It's going to be one of my "Must Have" utilities.

    JC.
     
  19. Comp01

    Comp01 Registered Member

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    I usually download every Javacool prog available, but I dont use Microsoft word, I use OpenOffice, and very rarely Microsoft Works 95 (Old, I know), so, I would like to see OpenOffice supported.
     
  20. jcouture

    jcouture Registered Member

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    Location:
    Omaha, Nebraska, USA
    Enhancement Suggestion

    Here's some suggestions for future releases:

    1. Support Drag and Drop, both on the interface and desktop.
    - If I drop a document, documents, or a folder on the Doc Scrubber shortcut, have the app automatically process any doc files with saved (default) settings.

    - If the application is open and running, then allow the user to drag and drop files or folders into the appropriate text boxes.

    2. Support a shortcut to DocScrubber in the "SendTo" folder.

    - If a document or multple documents are selected and the user clicks "SendTo/Doc Scrubber", then the documents will be scrubbed with the saved settings.

    - If a folder is selected and the user clicks "SendTo/Doc Scrubber", then the documents contained in that folder will be scrubbed with the saved settings.

    Sorry to innundate you with all of this stuff. I just think that this is a great little app and I tend to get carried away. :D
     
  21. L. Husick

    L. Husick Guest

    Any chance of getting DocScrubber as a java applet for use under MacOSX?

    Thanks!
     
  22. BlackSwan

    BlackSwan Registered Member

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    This is a very neat programme. I was really impressed! I downloaded and installed it this morning, and up to now it seems to be working just fine (I have Word 2000 on a Win 98SE system). :cool:

    Thanks for another great tool in the bag. :)

    BS
     
  23. Jeff

    Jeff Guest

    Doc scrubber Feature requests!

    No offense intended to authors, I'd just like it better if...
    the same option for scrubbing multiple documents applied to only analyzing!

    (I have a bunch of docs I wrote with different meta data in the summary sub-window that are not embarassing but I'd love to update and I don't want to toss other data until I've seen the analysis.)

    Maybe even a setting on scrub to select which data types are nuked would be AWESOME instead of a broad scrub-it-all approach.

    Thanks for the tool, I like the idea a lot!
    Personal replies welcome. w/o flames.
     
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