[vox-tech] Most efficient way to wipe hard drives

[Brian Lavender]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 03:22:55PM -0700, Tony Cratz wrote:
> Bill Broadley wrote:
> > Well shred is for files, not disks.  Erasing files is much trickier.  Most
> > editors make backup copies, undo logs, etc.  Not to mention every time you
> > edit a file the previous version (typically) gets deleted, thus those blocks
> > are on the free list and floating around your disk.  Not to mention any blocks
> > that are swapped out.
> > 
> > I'd consider shred radically less secure than just dd'ing the entire disk,
> > which is itself less secure than a secure erase.
> 
> 
> 	Us old school Unix people use to say that everything in Unix was
> 	a file, be it a disk or a normal file.
> 

Those old school people who didn't pay attention to the block that was
underneath or the page in memory!

-- 
Brian Lavender
http://www.brie.com/brian/