[BNM] Recovering previous file names

[David Pashley]

On Sep 02, 2007 at 16:05, Chris Billett praised the llamas by saying:
> Made no mention of operating system or file system as I¹ve got easy access
> to any, so any application or tool that does file history would be useful.
> 
> Any reason why you suspect that I won¹t be able to find the information I
> want? I mean more than you haven¹t come across them. If I¹m running into
> brick walls Œcos I¹m missing something obvious I¹d rather know! Just I seem
> to remember people finding out how files had been photoshoped etc. before,
> and previously saved from applications/file names and the like being
> available for files through a GUI... maybe I dreamt it.
> 
Because the way a file rename on most filesystems work would mean there
was no way to record the link between the new and old files. For
example, on a filesystem with POSIX semantics, a rename would be a link
and unlink system call. For the same reason that finding which filenames
point to the same file requires a complete scan of the filesystem, it
can't be done.

-- 
David Pashley
david at davidpashley.com
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.