Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3138 mails)

[Erik Ball <Ball@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Check out DBAN (free, posted on sourceforge).
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Write the ISO image to a cd, boot it up, and at the boot: enter dod.
This will start a 7 pass DoD grade wipe on the drive.

It is sufficient to say that the data will be 100% irrecoverable for all 
practical intents.

Erik

James Knott wrote:

> Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:
>
> > This isn't sufficient for a sufficiently determined and resourceful
> > adversary.  E.g. the intelligence services of major countries and
> > corporations.
> >
> > Magnetic disks are analog, not digital.  E.g., setting a bit to 1 then
> > 0 results in a slightly different magnetization levels and spatial
> > patterns than setting it to 0 twice.
>
>
> However, each time you overwrite, the orginal data gets pushed further 
> down into the noise, making it more difficult to read.  Eventually, a 
> point will be reached, when it's impossible to tell the original data, 
> from the noise.  There is IIRC, a specified number of overwrites, with 
> different patterns, so that the disk is considered fully erased.