On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 3:34 AM, Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11/20/2013 06:57 AM, Bernhard Voelker wrote: >> On 11/20/2013 01:45 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote: >>> Before I merge this I'd like to understand fully >>> the reason why shred currently defaults to writing >>> out progressively shorter names. From the source.. >>> >>> /* Repeatedly rename a file with shorter and shorter names, >>> to obliterate all traces of the file name on any system that >>> adds a trailing delimiter to on-disk file names and reuses >>> the same directory slot. */ >> >> That sounds like the filesystem terminates the file name on disk, >> e.g. with a NUL character, i.e. during each rename() the last >> character gets overwritten so that all characters in the original >> name are changed to the terminating character: >> >> 's', 'e', 'c', 'r', 'e', 't', '\0' >> 's', 'e', 'c', 'r', 'e', '\0', '\0' >> 's', 'e', 'c', 'r', '\0', '\0', '\0' >> 's', 'e', 'c', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0' >> 's', 'e', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0' >> 's', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0', '\0' >> >> (Just a guess, of course.)
That also matches what I understood. Thanks!
