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GENERAL INFORMATION
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Privacy Policy/Security Notice
NIST is an agency of the Date created:
8/20/2003 Technical comments: nsrl@nist.gov Website comments: web897@nist.gov
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Library Contents
The National Software Reference Library collects the original media for off-the-shelf software. This information is processed to obtain digital signatures (also called hashes) that uniquely identify the files in the software packages. With the signatures, law enforcement investigators can automate the processing of these files on seized computers, system administrators can identify critical system files that may have been perturbed, digital archivists can identify applications versus user-created data, or exact duplicates of files.
The digital signatures from the software in the NSRL are distributed
quarterly to subscribers in a Reference Data Set (RDS) on CDs.
ISO images are available via free download one month after the
subscriber media have been mailed.
The NSRL also collects downloaded files from websites, aka "clickwrapped"
software. The digital
signatures from these files are traceable to our level of
satisfaction and are included in the RDS.
The NSRL is investigating installed files from our software collection,
by installing the software onto virtual machines and saving the virtual
machine state onto CDs that can be stored on our shelves.
The full content lists are updated with every quarterly release. You can find links to the
Product listing, Manufacturer listing, and Operating Systems listing on the
downloads page.
The NSRL welcomes donations of software that is on the original
commercial media. Donations are accepted under a "non-use"
assumption; we do not need installation codes, we will not install
and use the software for daily business, we do not need most of
the manuals.
The following organizations and persons have
donated software for inclusion in the NSRL:
We thank these organizations for their generosity.
The NSRL can be used to prosecute intellectual property crimes. A
law enforcement agent or investigator can have easy and definitive access
to prove that a given piece of software is or is not a copy of specific
software. From a practical point of view, this means the prosecution will
not have to obtain a copy of X software to prove that a file found on a
defendant's system is from X software. The NSRL can easily be used
in criminal and civil cases and in other investigations and dispute procedures.
Contributing to the NSRL shows a strong commitment to corporate
citizenship. Much of the use of the NSRL will be to speed the
investigative process. This directly helps law enforcement solve cases
faster and with less cost. The NSRL is used by the FBI, the Secret
Service, DoD, the US Customs Service, and many state, local and
international agencies and private corporations.
To contribute, a company needs to either send NIST off-the-shelf
versions of their software or provide NIST the ability to download software
from a corporate website. NIST will not use the software;
it will only be used as data to populate the
NSRL database and subsequently released in the Reference Data Set (RDS).
Contributors receive one release of the RDS free of charge. The
free release is traditionally the next quarterly release after
the donation, so that the donated software is included.
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