I think it's safe to say that none of us really knows what resources
are available to certain organizations to aid in data forensics.
I have personal experience with data recovery, at least peripherally.
A company I worked for was the subject of an attack by a disgruntled
ex-employee who managed to erase a LOT of crucial corporate data, but
mostly just using rm -rf type techniques. The data was nearly 100%
recovered over the course of three weeks or so. I can't say much more
about the specifics of the situation, as it became a criminal matter
and law enforcement was involved and I don't want to put myself in
the position of having to answer to the FBI and Treasury Dept. A
friend who worked for the same company was a submariner in the US
Navy - what his exact role was, I don't know (he was very secretive
about it) but he did say that the "unofficial" rule with his Navy
colleagues was that the only way to guarantee a disk to be
unrecoverable was to put a bullet through it.
I think that various government agencies and corporate entities have
far more ability to recover data than we're aware.
I had read somewhere several years ago that the NSA considered
magnetic media to be unrecoverable if it was completely overwritten
with random data, and then all zeroes, three times.
Best guess really is that none of us truly knows, and if somebody is
looking to destroy data, the media should be physically destroyed.
cheers,
Chris
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