From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ELfuD-000539-QX for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 01 Oct 2005 11:51:54 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id j91BhLCP012502; Sat, 1 Oct 2005 11:43:21 GMT Received: from hetzner.email-server.info (new.email-server.info [213.133.109.44]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id j91BcP8I000247 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2005 11:38:25 GMT Received: from [192.168.1.11] (muedsl-82-207-200-158.citykom.de [82.207.200.158]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hetzner.email-server.info (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4F14D274006 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2005 13:46:11 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <433E77AD.2040303@mid.email-server.info> Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 13:49:01 +0200 From: Alexander Skwar User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (X11/20050809) X-Accept-Language: de-DE, de, en-us, en Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Good command for wiping a hard drive? References: <5bdc1c8b0509301334n7aff4434j449f085a4a4e8336@mail.gmail.com> <433DAF69.5060700@asmallpond.org> <433E2A32.3020007@mid.email-server.info> <433E422C.70209@djnauk.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <433E422C.70209@djnauk.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 2bc013bd-980a-4527-9750-347c860e74f8 X-Archives-Hash: 53b99f1b9a5cfc35f591ab0d9e7f5c46 Jonathan Wright schrieb: > Alexander Skwar wrote: >>>A good option for more speed would be to use aespipe to encrypt >>>/dev/zero and write that output to the disk. >> >> Why do that? Overwritten data is already pretty much >> irrecoverable. Or do you know of ONE instance, where >> those rescue companies restored an OVERWRITTEN (ie. >> not something simple as burned or such) drive? >> >> And if you fear, that the CIA or FBI might recover >> data - use a metal shredder... > > Actually, even if you format a hard drive, it's still relatively easy to > get the data off. Well, but that's only so, because a format normally doesn't rewrite the whole device but only some "header". > I can't remember the name of the program to do it, I bet it's based on "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" by Peter Gutmann (see ). > but if you want to > securely erase a hard drive according to NSA/CIA/FBI standards, There's no such thing. Those agencies recommend to incinerate harddrives containing sensitive data. > it needs > 37 passes using RANDOM data! No, it doesn't. That used to be true *AGES* ago with RLL/MFM drives, but no more with current drives. Nowadays, thanks to the improved reliability of harddrives, a simple overwrite with 0's is good enough. Back in May 2003, the german computermagazine c't send drives to ontrack, vogon and ibas with overwritten files. In *no* cases those companies could recover data. Even if data was just overwritten with 0! Those companies are only sucessful, when recovering data from burned or otherwise physically destroyed/inaccessible drives. Or do you have *PROVE* that those companies actually CAN recover overwritten data? I would *REALLY* be interested! Alexander Skwar -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list