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Re: how to sweep hard disk of confidential data



what about
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hdX ?


Martin Dickopp wrote:
Jon Dowland <dowland@gmail.com> writes:


On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 16:10:39 -0600, Doug Holland <meldroc@frii.com> wrote:

On Sunday 18 July 2004 11:52 am, Frank Gevaerts wrote:

On Sun, Jul 18, 2004 at 01:02:17PM -0400, H. S. wrote:

I am in a situation where a computer is to be given away and prior to
that it's hard disk needs to *thoroughly* cleaned (data consists of
financial information, reports, class exams, competition exams, etc).

Try http://dban.sourceforge.net/

I second this suggestion.  DBAN (short for Darik's Boot n' Nuke will wipe your
hard disk to the point where only the NSA has any hope of recovering data.

I read an interesting article about data recovery and the approaches
that can be used. Specialist places have ultra-fine read heads that
can catch ghost images towards the edge of tracks; which your head may
have missed. I think this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Without scaremongering, if the information you want to remove is of
such a critical nature that it must never be recovered no matter what
cost; you would have to destroy the drive.


If your opponents are able and willing to spend an /infinite/ amount
of money to get at the data on the disk, it must be assumed that they
already have it.  They have likely already used various spying
techniques.

Martin





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