Internet audit

[blockie]

I have heard that there is an audit trail , in WXP, of all of the URL's visited.
Is this true? And how do I use it?
Bill

[classicsoftware]

It's called index.dat and it keeps track of every place you've been. It's probably the first place cops go when looking at a pedophiles PC.

Spider is nowhere I can find on line. If you want to get rid of index.dat, please post back with your OS & I will give your instructions

[Paul Komski]

Spider

Info
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,6481,00.asp

Download
http://downloads.pcworld.com/pub/new/internet/other/spider116.zip

[ErnieK]

CCleaner also states tha tit gets rid of the INDEX.dat files

http://www.ccleaner.com/

[blockie]

It's called index.dat and it keeps track of every place you've been. It's probably the first place cops go when looking at a pedophiles PC.

What do I use to read "index.dat" and are there any settings for the recordings in it?
Bill

[classicsoftware]

The spider program listed above will list every URL in the index.dat file.

[blockie]

I installed SPIDER and it does find each and everyone of the index.dat files. But I have not figured out how to access (read) the contents of the index.dat files. I tried everything on the Spider menu and dropdown lists. No help. Even the Help file does not give any info.
I tried to open the index.dat file with WordPerfect, Word, Notepad, etc. Got either an "unsupported format" error msg or gobbely-gook.
Bill

[classicsoftware]

If you look through the documentation of Spider, there is way to display the contents of the file, other than that, I personally do not know how to read the file directly

[Paul Komski]

Reading the files directly can be done (with a text or hex editor) but the main problem is first getting to the relevant superhidden index.dat files and to tunnel through any special system shell folders en route.

Under spider's options choose to scan the whole drive and not just the windows directory. Then choose to save scan results. The text file produced can be read with any text editor.

[Paul Komski]

If you get to the SpiderLog.txt file you might like to try opening it in EditPadLite from http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html (one of my must have apps).

It is an alternative text editor to Notepad and one of the many embellishments is that it will display urls as "parsed hyperlinks" which you can double click to open in your default browser.

[ErnieK]

Spider also gives instruction on the web site of how to read the contentc in DOS. I did it a few years ago and after seeing exactly what was stored there I use Spider on a regular basis. If anyone wants these instructions I will look them out (it might take a couple of days) and either post the doc file or the web link for them.

If you want the program go to the following (Way Back) link where oyu will find numerous further links to the program. If one link is dead just keep trying until you get one that works.
http://web.archive.org/web/*sa_/http://www.fsm.nl/ward/

[blockie]

Yeah, I could use the doc file. See if I can do the same.
Thanks

[ErnieK]

blockie
I will look it out for oyu and either post it here or send it via e-mail. As i said it will take a couple of days.

[ErnieK]

Blocky (or anyone else interested)
If you send me an e-mail addy I will send the instructions to you. They are to big to post here (147kb) in PDF format.