Rifiuti2 is designed to run as portable Windows command line application, and no installation is required. Copy the binaries corresponding to your system (x64\ for 64 bit systems, x86\ for 32 bit) to any folder of your choice and they are ready for use. Read sections below on how to use the programs.
Translation
By default output messages of rifiuti2 are in English.
Optionally one can copy rifiuti−l10n folder
to the same location the binaries reside in, and set
LANGUAGE environment variable to appropriate value
to enable translations. Supported language codes are the
same as existing subdirectory names under
rifiuti−l10n folder. For example, assuming
folder rifiuti−l10n\fr\ exists, running
following in Windows cmd would enable French
translation:
set LANGUAGE=fr
The file rifiuti.pot in archive contains translation template for rifiuti2. Rifiuti2 makes use of gettext for handling translation. There are lots of tutorial on internet on how to work with gettext translations; any completed translation can be submitted to main author for inclusion in next release.
rifiuti [−hvz] [−x | [−8n] [−t delim]] [−l codepage] [−o outfile] filename
rifiuti-vista [−hvz] [−x | [−8n] [−t delim]] [−o outfile] file_or_directory
Rifiuti2 analyse recycle bin files from Windows. Analysis of Windows recycle bin is usually carried out during Windows computer forensics. Rifiuti2 can extract file deletion time, original path and size of deleted files and whether the deleted files have been moved out from the recycle bin since they are trashed.
Rifiuti2 supports a wide range of Windows versions, from Windows 98 to Windows 10. The command used for analysis depends on the version of Windows producing the recycle bin (not the version of users’ system!), which uses vastly different format before and after Vista:
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rifiuti-vista: For Vista or later, which is located in \$Recycle.bin\<SID>\. Each deleted file has its own accompanied index file remembering the original path, file size and deletion time. If original file is permanentsly deleted, so is the index file. | ||
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rifiuti: For Windows 98 to XP, which uses a single index file named INFO2 under either \RECYCLED\ or \RECYCLER\<SID>\. This file keeps track record for deletion status and info for all deleted items, including those permanently removed or restored. |
By default, both programs dump tab-delimited fields on screen, which can be viewed on screen or imported into spreadsheet program. −x option instructs program to dump XML formatted content instead.
Index field has different meaning for pre-Vista and post-Vista versions. INFO2 has an index number for each of deletion item indicating the chronological order of items. For Vista version, it means the index file name instead, which matches pattern ’$Ixxxxxx.<ext>’, where x is random alphanumeric character.
Deleted time is represented in UTC time by default, in ISO 8601 format. For example, 3PM at 2014 X’mas would be represented as
2014-12-25 15:00:00Z
rifiuti2 opts for using space as separator between date / time.
File size and file path are self-explanatory, but there are some special notes. File size can mean the real size of deleted file, or the cluster size it occupies on filesystem, depending on recycle bin format. File path might not always be displayable on local system because it might contain characters from other localized version of Windows.
−o, −−output=FILE
Write output to FILE.
−x, −−xml
Output in XML format instead of tab−delimited values. With XML mode, all plain text options are disallowed, and result is always in UTF-8 encoding. See below for plain text options.
−l, −−legacy−filename=CODEPAGE
Show legacy filename if available (like ’D:\Progra~1\’), and specify the CODEPAGE used in the Windows system producing this INFO2 file. Any encodings supported by iconv(1) can be used, though for maximum accuracy of file name results, it is better to stick with Microsoft codepages (such as CP850 or CP1252 for west European version, CP932 for Japanese, etc).
Note: This option is mandatory if INFO2 file is created by Windows 98. This option does not exist in rifiuti-vista.
−z, −−localtime
Present deletion time in numeric time zone of local system running the program. By default, UTC time (represented by letter ’Z’) is displayed, which is the time value recorded in index files. Using the X’mas example above, the time for Berlin (without daylight saving time) would be 2014-12-25 16:00:00+0100.
PLAIN TEXT
OUTPUT OPTIONS
−t,
−−delimiter=STRING
String to use as delimiter (TAB by default). Several escaped characters are recognised: \r (CARRIAGE RETURN), \n (NEW LINE), \t (TAB), \f (FORM FEED), \v (VERTICAL TAB), \e (ESCAPE)
−n, −−no−heading
Don’t show recycle bin path name, version and header for each field
−8, −−always−utf8
Always display result in UTF−8 encoding
MISCELLANEOUS
OPTIONS
−v, −−version
Print version information and exit.
−h, −−help
Show help options and exit.
−−help−all
Show all help options and exit.
−−help−text
Show plain text output options and exit.
rifiuti-vista −x −z −o result.xml \case\S−1−2−3\
Scan for index files under \case\S−1−2−3\, adjust all deletion time for local time zone, and write XML output to result.xml
rifiuti-vista −n −8 \case\S−1−2−3\
Show tab-delimited result on screen in UTF-8 encoding without header
rifiuti-vista -t ’\r\n’ \case\S−1−2−3\$IF96NJ3.rtf
Only analyse a single index file and print each field in its own line
rifiuti −t ’,’ -o result.csv INFO2
Change tab-delimited result to comma-delimited and write to result.csv
rifiuti −l CP1255 −8 −n INFO2
Read INFO2 from Hebrew version of Windows, display 8.3 file names on screen in UTF-8 encoding without header
The following
environment variables affect execution of program:
CHARSET, LC_CTYPE
If recycle bin path contains non-ASCII character, these variables affect how they are displayed. UTF-8 capable systems are recommended to set CHARSET=UTF-8 or use appropriate UTF-8 values for LC_CTYPE explicitly, otherwise path might be displayed in Universal Character Name sequences like \u1234.
RIFIUTI_DEBUG
Setting it to any non-empty value would cause programs to print more debugging output to stderr.
Both programs return 0 on success, and >0 if error occurs.
However rifiuti-vista is more permissive: it still returns success if some (not all) of index files are invalid.
Rifiuti2 is a rewrite of rifiuti, a tool of identical purpose written by Foundstone which was later purchased by McAfee. Quoting from the original FoundStone page:
Many computer crime investigations require the reconstruction of a subject’s Recycle Bin. Since this analysis technique is executed regularly, we researched the structure of the data found in the Recycle Bin repository files (INFO2 files). Rifiuti, the Italian word meaning "trash", was developed to examine the contents of the INFO2 file in the Recycle Bin. ... Rifiuti is built to work on multiple platforms and will execute on Windows (through Cygwin), Mac OS X, Linux, and *BSD platforms.
However, since the original rifiuti (last updated 2004) can’t analyze recycle bin from any localized version of Windows (restricted to English), this rewrite effort is born to overcome the limitation. Later rifiuti2 was improved to add support for Vista format recycle bin, XML output and other extra features not available from original version.
In very special circumstance (which author can’t reproduce now), index file of certain deleted item can be corrupt, causing incorrect deleted file size to be stored. There is no way to report correct size. This problem shouldn’t happen after Vista though.
Handling of non-ASCII file argument is not satisfactory; it may not work in certain case under MinGW bash.
Non-ASCII deleted item path name may not be always displayed appropriately, especially on systems with non-UTF-8 locale (such as Windows cmd, where output is restricted to ANSI codepages). Storing UTF-8 result into file with −8 or −x option and then opening it with Unicode capable editor could be a solution.
Report bugs to
https://github.com/abelcheung/rifiuti2/issues
Information about rifiuti2 can be found on
https://abelcheung.github.io/rifiuti2/
Open Digital Evidence Search and Seizure Architecture project , which contains the original rifiuti tool
Forensics tools and other security related utilities originally written by FoundStone are now available under McAfee’s own license
Vista recycle bin file structure , by Abel Cheung
INFO2 recycle bin file example , by Steve Hailey
Part of the work of rifiuti2 is derived from Rifiuti. Both pieces of software are licensed under the simplified BSD license.
The main author of rifiuti2 is Abel Cheung <abelcheung@gmail.com>
The original author of rifiuti is Keith J. Jones <keith.jones@foundstone.com>
Anthony Wong <ypwong@debian.org> helped in Debian packaging and was author of the original manpage.