Re: Wiping hard drives - Re: debian-user-digest Digest V2011 #1704
> > -------- Forwarded Message --------
> > From: Mark <mamarcac@gmail.com>
> > To: Debian List <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
> > Subject: Re: Wiping hard drives
> > Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:15:38 -0700
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Aaron Toponce
> > <aaron.toponce@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > DBan is overkill, by leaps and bounds. Not only does it
> > force the full
> > drive, but the minimum number of wipes is 3. When already
> > booted into
> > your Debian system, pulling up a terminal, and running the
> > dd(1) command
> > as root is all that you need to do. Saves you gobs, and gobs
> > of time,
> > and doesn't wear out the drive in the process.
> >
> > Further, most GNU/Linux operating systems ship with GNU
> > Shred. So,
> > booting off a live CD or USB, and running shred(1) in the
> > root console
> > is just as effective, and performant as DBan.
> >
> > ^^ what he said. I boot from a GParted Live usb drive because it's
> > super lightweight and fast, and then use dd if=/dev/zero of
> > =/dev/sdX bs=1M to wipe a drive. I don't even care about using the
> > urandom; zeros is fine for me.
> >
> > Mark
If you want to be safe, you need to overwrite the data several times,
'shred' does delete data several times. We hardly are able to recover
data that one time really was deleted at home, but CSI is able to do
this and I'm not talking about the trash that is produced by Jerry
Bruckheimer. There e.g. are real methods with lasers that make it
possible to recover magnetic data from sledgehammer deformed HDDs and
even a private person legally just need to pay some k of Euros to a
company and can benefit from those methods. OTOH nobody is able to
factorise primes, it would take 20 or 30 years to crack openPGP with a
super computer, but if there should be delicate data on your HDDs, that
isn't encrypted, note, it just takes some seconds to open the door of
your flat and to get your HDD that's still in use.
> >
I like it when child porn people and such bad people get arrested,
because they don't know how to handle data, but I don't like it if
freedom of press and other good things are attacked, because idiots
don't take care to protect delicate data.
In other words, don't think about how to delete delicate data, take care
that delicate data already is encrypted when you still need it. If it's
encrypted you don't need to think about how to delete data, if it isn't
needed anymore, yous cancel the directory entry or don't do anything,
when you through an old HDD away.
2 cents from an anarchist ;)
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