Re: simple way to securely destroy deleted files in a file system
On 15/07/10 12:31 PM, Wolodja Wentland wrote:
>>
>> Its first and second partitions (sdc1 and sdc2) are vfat. I was thinking
>> of mounting these on /mnt/scd1 (and scd2) and then doing:
>> # dd if=/dev/zero > /mnt/sdc1/zeros.bin; rm -f /mnt/sdc1/zeros.bin
>>
>> and the same for scd2. The idea is fill the partition with new data thus
>> overwriting any deleted files' data that is lying around. Would that be
>> adequate? The objective is just to prevent a casual recovery, reading
>> and copying of the data by a future user, so I don't need multiple
>> over-writes.
>
> Take a look at "secure-delete" which contains "sfill" which can be used
> to fill the available free space on a hd with random (and specifically
> crafted) data to ensure that data recovery is impossible. I am not sure
> if it works with vfat though :-\
I am looking at its man page, which starts with
"sfill is designed to delete data which lies on available
diskspace on mediums in a secure manner which can not be recovered by
thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. The wipe algorythm is based
on the paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State
Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security Symposium by Peter Gutmann,
one of the leading civilian cryptographers."
Talk about overkill!
Sfill has some options which will make it easier and faster (by not
doing it in the most robust and time expensive fashion) to delete/free
disk space. I just have to verify how it work and I don't inadvertently
delete files which I am not supposed to.
Thanks.
> good luck
>
> Wolodja
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