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Monster Media 1996 #15
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Monster Media Number 15 (Monster Media)(July 1996).ISO
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win_utl2
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sentry47.zip
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HISTORY.TXT
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1996-04-17
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Revision History
================
Pre-Release Notes
-----------------
March 95 - My search for DOS security programs is
unsuccessful. The general idea for Sentry is
formed.
April 95 - Coding for Sentry begins.
May 95 - Still coding...
June 95 - Sentry is now a complete program.
July 95 - Beta testing. Many updates made.
Sentry V1.0
-----------
Release Date: 20 July 95
- Sentry V1.0 (Shareware) is released. Contains basic
functionality. At this point, Sentry is approximately 1700
lines of code.
Sentry V1.1
-----------
Release Date: 27 July 95
- Sentry V1.1 Released. V1.1 fixes some serious bugs in V1.0,
and has these additions:
* Date format is selectable.
* Users with no password expiration are not assigned an expiry
date on entering a new password.
* Incorrect password verification displayed immediately when
creating a new user, or toggling SuperUser status.
Sentry V1.2
-----------
Release Date: 29 July 95
- Sentry V1.2 Released. Some more minor bugs are repaired and
several areas are updated. Additions are:
* Memory management improved.
* All user stats now shown instead of just login name.
* The keyboard buffer is flushed after an invalid login
attempt.
Sentry V1.3
-----------
Release Date: 01 Aug 95
- Sentry V1.3 Released. Again, more bugs were fixed in this
version. Additions are:
* The log file is now much more detailed than before, and
includes a time stamp on every action.
* A bug with deleting a user listed as 15th or later in the
password file has been fixed. (Regardless of what page the
user you selected to delete was on, a user from the first
page was always deleted).
* A bug in the multi-user display was fixed. (If the last page
contained one user, you could not page down to see him).
Sentry V1.4
-----------
Release Date: 08 Aug 95
- Sentry V1.4 Released. Some minor changes have been made,
mostly for the sake of appearance. Additions are:
* The Sentry.ini file now allows the user to select the
colours to be used for normal and highlighted text.
* Input routines have been improved and simplified.
Inappropriate characters have been stripped from the input
stream.
Sentry V2.0
-----------
Release Date: 11 Aug 95
- Sentry V2.0 Released. Many revisions, fixes and additions have
been made to the program for this release. Most of the update
ideas came from Bret Jacobsen. Additions include:
* Invalid login/password length messages (both to the screen
and log file) are user-definable in the Sentry.ini file.
* If a normal user attempts to log in as a SuperUser, it is
recorded in the log file.
* The SuperUser Login flag is cleared after an invalid login.
(This is a bug fix: previously if CTRL-ENTER was pressed
during an invalid login attempt, the next successful login
attempt would be as a SuperUser, as long as the user had
access).
* A bug with the Toggle SuperUser Access option corrupting the
time stamps has been fixed.
* The log file is again re-organized to be more "readable."
* You can no longer delete the last SuperUser on your system
(thereby locking yourself out). Sentry performs a check
previous to deletion and will abort if you are deleting the
last SuperUser.
* A bug with the input skipping characters was fixed.
* After a successful login, the number of invalid login
attempts since your last successful login is now shown.
* The user can now abort a password change, unless the
password has expired.
* The option to reset an account's password has been added to
the SuperUser menu.
* You can now define the number of invalid logins permissible
before an account expires (locks up). The default setting is
defined in the Sentry.ini file, and the settings for
individual accounts can be modified from the SuperUser menu.
Sentry V2.1
-----------
Release Date: 20 Aug 95
* Input no longer automatically ends after "MaxPasswordLen"
characters have been entered at the login or password
prompts. Input continues as required, however only
"MaxPasswordLen" characters are used. Any extra characters
are discarded.
* Case sensitivity for logins can now be turned on and off via
the Sentry.ini file. This is applicable to logins only,
passwords are still case sensitive.
Sentry V2.2
-----------
Release Date: 10 Sep 95
* Sentry now uses windowed screens for all output, as opposed
to simply directing output to the entire screen.
* When entering dates, the year is now checked. If it is not 4
characters, the user is forced to re-enter it. This was
causing problems with Sentry accepting '96' as a valid year,
and subsequently not translating correctly.
* A bug with the password encoding scheme has been fixed. The
encryption used to truncate passwords at length 8, causing
only the first 8 characters to be recognized. For
SuperUsers, this meant that passwords over 8 would not
contain the SuperUser stamp (it was truncated). This problem
has now been rectified, and passwords are significant for
MaxPasswordLen characters. All in all, this seriously
increases the amount of security available from Sentry.
NOTE: Because of the above modification, older versions of
Sentry cannot use password files from V2.2 and up. The
reverse is not true however, as Sentry V2.2 can use password
files all the way back to V1.0.
Also note that to use passwords over 8 characters, you must
re-create the old passwords. This can be easily done by
selecting the "Change Account Password" option from the
SuperUser menu.
Sentry V2.3
-----------
Release Date: 24 Sep 95
* Small bugs with windowed mode have been fixed.
* Windowed mode is now optional. For those that prefer
"normal" operation, you can set that in the Sentry.ini file.
* Log file viewing can now handle long lines, and you can skip
to the end of the file by pressing the ESC key once.
* Quickstart instructions are now included in the Qstart.txt
file.
Sentry V2.4
-----------
Release Date: 06 Oct 95
* The Sentry.ini file can now be edited from the SuperUser
menu. The user can get information on each attribute,
including a brief description, security notes, default
setting, and the current setting just by selecting which
attribute they wish to change.
Sentry V2.5
-----------
Release Date: 10 Oct 95
* Sentry can now be run from any location. The user does not
have to be in the Sentry home directory for it to work
properly.
Sentry V2.6
-----------
Release Date: 25 Oct 95
* The SuperUser may modify the "Login:" and "Password:"
prompts to suit their custom environment. These are changed
either through the Sentry.ini file or via the SuperUser
menu.
* Any setting changes made via the SuperUser menu are now
recorded in the log file. This will help SuperUser keep a
history of setting changes, which is useful in the case of a
security audit.
* An environment variable is now set by Sentry upon successful
login. The variable is set to the username of the person
logging in. This can be very useful if you wish other
programs to link with Sentry and perform specific actions
depending on who is logging in. (For example: if it is a
SuperUser logging in, you may wish to display some system
stats, or you may want to display individual greetings (or
warnings) based on who is logging in).
Sentry V2.7
-----------
Release Date: 28 Oct 95
* Sentry now uses a screen saver to blank the screen during
idle periods. Although this feature does not add to Sentry's
security, it now means that users can run Sentry before
leaving their terminal and not worry about burn-in.
Sentry V3.0
-----------
Release Date: 10 Nov 95
* The old password and Sentry.ini files are no more!
These files have been done away with, since they posed a
slight security risk. This removes the need to edit the
initialization settings by hand.
* You can no longer revoke SuperUser access from the last
SuperUser on your system. By doing this, you could
potentially lock yourself out of your system, so it is not a
valid option any more.
* "Exploding Windows" are now available. These can be turned
on via the initialization settings. This is for appearance
only, and has no effect on functionality.
* The user can now select a message to appear randomly on the
screen during the screen saver. This fixes a bug in previous
versions where the cursor remained in the upper left corner
during the screen saver, which could case burn-in.
* Upon exiting the SuperUser menu, the screen is restored to
the way it was before Sentry was run. This eliminates the
problem of sensitive information remaining on your screen.
Sentry V3.1
-----------
Release Date: 03 Dec 95
* The user can now select the character to be echoed to the
screen when a password is entered. In addition, the user can
chose to have no character or the actual character echoed.
* The log file now records when the Sentry DOS shell is
entered and exited.
Sentry V3.2
-----------
Release Date: 08 Dec 95
* The maxixum number of invalid logins can now be set during
user creation.
* The initialization settings contain a parameter for
automatically expiring accounts that have been inactive for
a given amount of time.
* SuperUsers can now send a one-line memo to any user
(including themself). This is useful for reminders,
warnings, or explainations (why is user X locked out?).
Sentry V3.3
-----------
Release Date: 20 Dec 95
* SuperUsers now have the ability to protect a file. That is,
when they run this option on a given executable file, that
file becomes "protected." The next time that file is run,
Sentry will execute. If a correct login and password are
given, then the original file is executed, otherwise the
user is locked out.
* The initialization settings can now be exported and
re-loaded during an upgrade. (IE: you don't have to rebuild
your entire account structure and preferences each time you
upgrade.)
* Faster disk I/O.
* Many sections of code have been optimized.
* Message files can now reside on a drive other than the drive
that Sentry.exe is on. This is a bug fix from 3.2.
* Windows now have titles.
Sentry V3.4
-----------
Release Date: 01 Jan 96
* Install program now handles many of the "low-level"
procedures, including file copying and editing. This removes
the much of the burden from the user during the install.
Sentry V3.5
-----------
Release Date: 05 Jan 96
* The log file has been slightly re-designed. Now each user
has their own "log file" which can be viewed and/or purged.
This makes it easier to track an individual's activities -
all you have to do is view their log file to see everything
they have done, without the extra clutter.
* File protection has been slightly re-worked to be compatible
with more files.
Sentry V3.6
-----------
Release Date: 11 Jan 96
* When viewing the userlist, the current action is shown at
the prompt (IE: Delete, Change Password, etc).
* The SuperUser menu has been broken down. System
administation is still done from the main menu, but user
maintenance now has it's own submenu.
* Hot keys are back after popular demand. (IE: one key press
executes a menu option).
* Screen is reset between major menus. This reduces
unnecessary clutter on the screen.
Sentry V3.7
-----------
Release Date: 20 Jan 96
* A backup log file has been added. Information is moved from
the primary log file to the backup log file automatically,
once the log file reaches a user specified size.
* The screen saver can now be activated automatically by
pressing the F2 key at any time.
* When protecting .BAT files, the corresponding .EXE file will
not be over-written (if it exists).
Sentry V3.8
-----------
Release Date: 31 Jan 96
* The descriptions of the initialization settings have been
removed from the Sentry.exe file. This saves about 10kb of
memory when using protected files, plus speeds up general
operation by about 1/6.
* An uninstall option has been added to the install program.
Sentry V4.0
-----------
Release Date: 10 Feb 96
* File protection is now more stable. In previous versions of
Sentry, a protected file could become corrupt if the account
structure was modified in certain ways.
* Exiting the screen saver now requires your password when on
the SuperUser menu, or any submenu. This allows you to
activate the screen saver (F2) and leave your terminal
without having to exit the SuperUser menu.
Sentry V4.1
-----------
Release Date: 15 Feb 96
* Files can no longer be protected twice. Protecting a file
multiple times caused some problems, while providing little
or no added functionality.
* Online help is now available by pressing the F1 key at any
time. Help is context sensitive and will automatically bring
up the topic related to your current actions.
Sentry V4.2
-----------
Release Date: 22 Feb 96
* Sentry now uses a secure file deletion process. This means
that any attempt to recover files deleted by Sentry will
reveal only useless "garbage."
* During login, the password is padded on screen after it is
entered. This means that a 6 character password will be
padded out to the maximum length with the echo character.
This is done so that a password's length cannot be
determined if someone glances at your screen.
Sentry V4.3
-----------
Release Date: 25 Feb 96
* A few minor bugs with the display were fixed (if the title
was disabled, the title box would still appear, etc).
* The option to turn "type-ahead" on or off has been added to
the initialization settings.
* The option to clear the screen before executing has been
added to the initialization settings.
Sentry V4.4
-----------
Release Date: 07 Mar 96
* Install program now allows use of hidden directories.
* The SuperUser can now enter a DOS shell from the SuperUser
menu to perform quick DOS operations.
Sentry V4.5
-----------
Release Date: 20 Mar 96
* A "Please Wait" message now appears during disk access to
let the user know that Sentry is working. This is helpful
for some operations (like protecting a large file) that take
a considerable amount of time.
* A Security Audit feature has been added to the SuperUser
menu. The Security Audit checks for potential weaknesses in
three areas: System, Initialization Settings, and Account
Structure. Weaknesses can be fixed on the spot if desired.
* A bug with protected file's initialization settings showing
up incorrectly has been fixed.
Sentry V4.6
-----------
Release Date: 05 Apr 96
* The Security Audit and install program now add the BootKeys
line to the MSDOS.SYS file intelligently.
* Some minor bugs have been fixed in various places.
* The user must accept the license agreement prior to
installation.
Sentry V4.7
-----------
Release Date: 20 Apr 96
* More minor modifications. Many cosmetic changes have been
made. Problems with the log file in individual mode,
problems with skipping the SuperUser menu when changing
passwords, and several other small bugs have all been fixed
in this version.
* Some basic operations have been "sped up" allowing almost
all operations to run faster.