Re: Cleaning

[Andrew M Hoerter <amh@POBOX.COM>]

On Sat, 15 September 2001 A.D., J.C. Roberts wrote:

> I'm not sure how to do this after things have been already deleted but
> if the goal is just doing a `secure' delete check out the -P switch of
> rm. Although this is the old DoD standard of three overwrite passes,
> I'm not sure if it's still as bullet proof as it once was. These days
> modern computer forensics can still access data that has been
> over-written numerous times.

Peter Gutmann's work has been widely referenced in this area:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

At certain classification levels within DoD and the U.S. Government,
physical destruction of the disk mechanism to an unrecoverable point 
is the only acceptable method.  I guess you just have to decide how
sensitive the material is, and what the risks are if it is recovered.

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