Re: Wiping hard drives - Re: debian-user-digest Digest V2011 #1704
On Sat, 2011-09-17 at 08:59 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> > > -------- 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,
^^^^ just
> when you through an old HDD away.
>
> 2 cents from an anarchist ;)
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