To expand on "bullshit" a little... The longer you leave a 0 or 1 in a given place on a platter the more of an "impression" it makes there. Writing over it with with random bits, even several times, will not totally erase the deep magnetic impression of the former bit. Forensics are more than good enough to pick that up, if you pay the money.
As always, the real question becomes how much of a chance is there of someone getting an old hard disk, and how much damage would be done if they read the data on it. This is where is usually falls apart. People want to completely wipe a disk, but want that to be essentially free in cost and hassle. Tough cookies. If it's worth it, then completely destroy the drives. If it's not worth it then write random data on it a few times and call it good. But make an informed choice. Writing random data might stop joe blow, but it won't stop someone serious with a lot to gain. On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 05:36:46PM -0600, Marco Peereboom wrote: > bullshit. > > On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 12:56:54PM -0800, new_guy wrote: > > xSAPPYx wrote: > > > > > > Someone linked me this article a couple calling into question the > > > ability to actually read overwritten data: > > > http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-guttman.html > > > > > > I'de love to read something from the other side, showing real examples > > > of getting usable data off of a disk that has been overwritten / wiped > > > / etc > > > > > > any links or info? > > > > > > > Not possible on today's drives. In fact, according to NIST, one overwrite > > with only zeros is sufficient. See The National Institute of Standards and > > Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-88, "Guidelines for Media > > Sanitation." > > > > -- > > View this message in context: > > http://www.nabble.com/delete-deleted-data-tp14560809p14561973.html > > Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > -- Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD User Group | MetaBUG [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://phxbug.org/ | http://metabug.org/ http://www.stilyagin.com/ | Daemons in the Desert | Global BUG Federation
