Finding duplicate data

[James Moore <jhmiso () RIT EDU>]

This is an availability issue (it is also an information management
issue).  Sometimes people have so much stuff on their hard drives that
important stuff gets misplaced, or they operate from old versions etc,
with wrong conclusions reached (or previous decisions rehashed).  And,
yes, I have experienced some of that myself.

I have found backup vendors working in this space, but they seem to just
try to get as much onto a tape as is possible.

What I am looking for is an easy to use gui that we could put in
people's hands that does a couple of things well.

1) Detects pure duplicates, (probably by hash and size) and then allows
for checks for deleting in various places.  May even place a "moved to"
message where deleted.

2) Checks for "versions" near matches, then displays sizes and
modification times, and then has similar types of deletion/elimination.
This is probably harder.

Anyone know of anything like this?  As we try to improve personal data
management, something like this could be a great tool.

Jim


- - - -
Jim Moore, CISSP, IAM
Information Security Officer
Rochester Institute of Technology
151 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5603
(585) 475-5406 (office)
(585) 255-0809 (Cell - Incident Reporting & Emergencies)
(585) 475-7920 (fax)


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weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us."
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