Absolution 0.5.2 Deterrence Release (Second Beta)

Greetings Forensics and eDiscovery Community

The free and open source e-Discovery and forensics tool Absolution has a new branch "Deterrence" now available at http//absolution.sourceforge.net/ It's been 9 or 10 months since there was an update – but there was a lot needed to be done.

Overview The idea behind Absolution is to process bulk data (such as a hard drive) by extracting and analyzing each file to produce a larger and broader understanding of the contents (i.e., getting "the big picture" by examining little but important details.) The aims to be as simple as possible so that any reasonably tech savvy individual could figure it out. The output is entirely in XML and is meant to be as open as possible with other tools as it possibly can.

What's New?

- Faster performance, lower requirements, larger volume and more robust.
- Introducing command line mode that exports in both human readable and XML.
- Absolution .DLL for including its features into other packages and breaking free of a GUI.
- Ability to compare two different runs (i.e., compare a system to its previous run a month ago.)
- More tools, tool enhancements, and usability.
- Internal standardizatization of naming conventions and coding practices.
- Bug fixes, and more bug fixes, and more bug fixes… (*sigh*)

Comments

Each branch aims to accomplish a big leap forward in some regard, and "Deterrence" aimed largely at trying to break free of "single use" mindset and allow developers and enthusiasts to repurpose the program. First was by creating a .DLL library with all functionality intact, then by creating a Command Line mode that works similar to a Unix "file" command. With that way of thinking, I've tried this time around to help provide foums, wiki, support, etc. to the people who wish to join this community. Hello World, wiki, and other documentation is available here.

This is still just a Beta release and all the feedback that people can send me would be extremely useful. I'd really like to see Absolution live up to the potential of making the world a better place through fast and simplified examinations, helping get solid answers to people faster. Absolution will likely remain in beta until I'm convinced its been built out enough to meet the needs (both basic and extensibility) of its primary users.

Sincerely,

Eric, Programmer
eknight@immunesoft.com