Hi, I am currently doing my Master's in CS from Stony Brook University and the project named "Implement file system flags to scrub data blocks before deletion" for GSOC 2012 have really interested me. I have recently worked on linux kernel in my Fall semester and have completed file system project which was related to creating virtual block device driver for emulating different characteristics like latency, etc. of disk drives. So in short I am familiarized to linux kernel but havent worked on Netbsd kernel before. But at the same time I think it won't be that difficult for me to work on Netbsd kernel for this project after being worked on linux kernel. Infact it would be a very good experience and I would definitively get to learn a lot from this project. Also I have completed Redhat Certifications which also shows that I am comfortable with linux.
I want to know few more things about this GSOC project. So I would at first let you know about my understanding of this project. So what I have understood is that whenever that flag is set and a file/folder gets deleted i.e. at the point of unlink system call we just need to rewrite all the blocks of that file with some random data and then release those blocks. Normally what happens is we do not overwrite file blocks before deleting so some data remains even after that file is deleted and that might cause a security issue if the file had some important secret data. So by generating some pseudo random numbers we can erase the previous secure data. The second part of the project would be modifying different kernel and user level functions which deal with those flags. I would like to know is there anything else which you are expecting from this project or is there any particular flow of doing this project required by you. Also it would be helpful if you let me know other information which you think is important for doing this project. Hoping to hear back from you soon. Thanking you, Sanket Padawe
