1) Gutmann's 35 passes were devised to stress the recording methodologies of the day. Many of them are for encoding schemes not used anymore.
2) Canadian RCMP TSSIT OPS-II says: "Must first be checked for correct functioning and then have all storage areas overwritten once with the binary digit ONE, once with the binary digit ZERO and once with a single numeric, alphabetic or special character, " (http://jya.com/rcmp2.htm)
American DoD 5220-22.M says: "Overwriting all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify." This is permitted for classifications up to SECRET. It is not acceptable for TOP SECRET and higher.
I have to conclude that *our* spooks are of the opinion that even 3 passes are sufficient to wipe out data thoroughly enough so that it's not worth it for the *other* spooks to try recovering 'Secret'...
here is a more recent paper from the RCMP along similar lines:
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tsb/pubs/it_sec/g2-003_e.pdf
cheers, twkonefal
-- Tomasz Konefal Systems Administrator Command Post and Transfer Corp. 416-585-9995 x.349
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