Skans Sanitizer · Windows app
Skans Sanitizer is a Windows desktop app for the technician who has to hand a vendor a log bundle, a config export or a database backup — and cannot hand over the customer with it. Drop the files on it and it builds a transformed copy: deterministic rules and open-weights language models, both running on the laptop, replace hostnames, addresses, accounts, names, secrets and site words consistently; an independent residual check re-reads the copy before anything can leave; the mapping sheet stays with you. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is fetched. The copy is written beside the original.
How it works
There is no wizard. The technician drops a zip, a folder, loose files or a SQL Server backup on the window, presses Sanitize and reviews what was found. The visible sanitized copy exists only after the residual scan passes and the review is acknowledged — the work happens in a quarantined job directory the technician cannot pick up off disk and send by mistake.
.bak backups restored through a local SQL Server instance.bundle.zip becomes bundle.sanitized.zip, rebuilt entry by entry, never a mutated copy of the original.What it looks for
Deterministic rules, context rules and structured-field rules run first and catch everything that has a shape. A local language model reads what does not — names in prose, a contact in a ticket note — and its findings are ranked with the rules; a lower-confidence guess never overrides a certain match. Replacements are consistent across the whole job, so a hostname is the same pseudonym in every file it appears in.
IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, MAC addresses, hostnames and FQDNs, Windows and LDAP distinguished names, GUIDs, version strings and device serial numbers — including the keyed forms found in config exports (host=, server:, tags in a column).
Domain and local accounts, e-mail addresses, person names, phone numbers, postal addresses, national identifiers and account numbers, in prose and in structured fields.
Private keys, JWTs, API keys and tokens, connection strings, encoded secrets and password fields. Secrets are always removed; the policy panel lets you pseudonymise or preserve every other kind, but never a secret.
Company names, device tags and their misspellings, and custom terms you add before the job — site codes, project names, tag prefixes — plus a signed rules pack that updates without a new build.
Rules and a model, both on your machine
Patterns catch what has a shape: an address, a MAC, a key, a hostname. They cannot read. So alongside the deterministic rules the app runs open-weights language models locally, on Windows ML, with no API and no network: the same detection a cloud service would sell you, without sending the customer's dump anywhere to get it. The rules and the model are ranked together; a model guess never overrides a certain match, and a second model pass re-reads the finished copy before export as an independent check.
OpenAI's open-weights privacy-filter model (Apache 2.0) reads log lines and ticket notes the way a person would, and finds the site contact, the engineer who signed off, the cardholder in a SQL insert, where no regex could.
MongoDB's leaf-ir embedding model with a sqlite-vec index inside the job's own store classifies a column called Data1 as a person-name column because its values are, whatever the header says. Schema, types and relationships are kept.
The residual checker has its own rules and its own model pass at a lower threshold. A person name the transform missed blocks the export; it is never quietly shipped because the first pass did not see it.
The install bundle carries the app, the .NET and Windows App SDK runtimes, both models and the vector extension. Nothing is fetched at install and nothing is uploaded at run time. Every job report says which detection ran: rules only, or rules and model, with the model version.
Readable, not random
Replacements are ordinary words, one per domain label, used everywhere that label appears: dc1.northwind.local reads back as amber.harbor.local and NORTHWIND\a.torres as harbor\quilt. The vendor can say “the harbor domain” on the call and mean the right thing. The mapping sheet — CSV or XLSX, the real values against the pseudonyms — is written for the technician only; the app refuses to write it inside the sanitized copy.
What it is not
Skans Sanitizer is an assistive tool. It looks for known patterns of secrets and identity; it will miss values and mis-classify values. A passing scan means the checker found no match against its current rules. It is not a legal status, and the person who sends the output is responsible for what they disclose. The app says exactly that on the review screen, every time, and the export button sits under it. The full Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability ships in the app and forms part of the software agreement accepted on first launch.
Editions & pricing
Every edition runs the full engine — the same detection, transform and residual scan. What you pay for is unlimited export, folder and database sources, the mapping sheet, more seats, and someone to call. A seat is one Windows machine; a licence key is issued and activated from the customer portal, and the portal shows how many seats an account holds.
One seat, five sanitized copies every 30 days, files only, no mapping sheet. A free key is issued to a verified account on the portal and checks in every 30 days. No card.
Everything a paid seat does — unlimited export, folders, SQL Server backups, the mapping sheet — for 14 days on one machine. When it ends the app keeps working as Community.
Per seat per year: $999 for one, $899 each in a pack of five, $799 each in a pack of twenty-five. Annual, prepaid, in USD, managed from the portal.
Licences per person rather than per machine, held in a pool at your organisation, with a view of who holds what and the ability to release a leaver’s seat without a ticket. Negotiated and invoiced. Talk to us.
Talk to us
Built for the teams running networks the cloud can't reach. Email us for a technical walkthrough — architecture, controls, and exactly how it stays offline.