Doug Powless spake unto Mike Powell <=-

Ed's message to you about Eraser is dead-on. It lets you customize
those file areas you want to wipe. It will run a routine that
overwrites empty file space (I believe it also lets you specify the
wipe method, up to 35 overwrites if you want).

Someone I know who has to do military-grade security (works for
Lockheed research) was talking about these HD and file wipe
programs recently... he says the problem is that as HDs age, there
gets to be more and more track detritus due to the width of the
data track getting narrower as the write head ages, and this
detritus is readable with the right tools (on the order of electron microscopes, not ordinary software), no matter how much erasing and
overwriting you do. The most recent data might be gone, but older
data is liable to be recoverable -- if someone has the resources
and actually cares that much.

This is why secure facilities physically destroy the data surface
on discarded hard drives -- literally melt it off the platter.

Occurs to me to wonder if this "track slop" data recovery technique
might be somewhat defeated nowadays, by the fact that HD tracks are
down to just a few molecules wide, so there's no longer near as
much room for leftover data that there was back in the Olden Daze.

But since most of us aren't international spies or other sorts of
covert agents, and don't own any files that critical, it's more a
curiosity than a concern.





... If you sufficiently torture the data, it *will* confess.
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Thanks for the responses. I have compiled a list of options and am going to let them decide what they want to do.

So. Mike. Did you come to any decisions about which disk-wiping
utility you'll use? :)

---
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Doug Powless spake unto Mike Powell <=-

Ed's message to you about Eraser is dead-on. It lets you customize those file areas you want to wipe. It will run a routine that overwrites empty file space (I believe it also lets you specify the wipe method, up to 35 overwrites if you want).

Someone I know who has to do military-grade security (works for
Lockheed research) was talking about these HD and file wipe
programs recently... he says the problem is that as HDs age, there
gets to be more and more track detritus due to the width of the
data track getting narrower as the write head ages, and this
detritus is readable with the right tools (on the order of electron microscopes, not ordinary software), no matter how much erasing and overwriting you do. The most recent data might be gone, but older
data is liable to be recoverable -- if someone has the resources
and actually cares that much.

I had heard that somewhere too.

This is why secure facilities physically destroy the data surface
on discarded hard drives -- literally melt it off the platter.

In my workplace, the HDDs are put through a grinder. Apparently it's
a massive beast that will kill data but good.

Occurs to me to wonder if this "track slop" data recovery technique
might be somewhat defeated nowadays, by the fact that HD tracks are
down to just a few molecules wide, so there's no longer near as
much room for leftover data that there was back in the Olden Daze.

You know what I'm wondering? What about the new SDDs - or flash
drives? I don't know enough yet about the technology to even know how it stores, or whether it's trackable. I would imagine something is left but...

But since most of us aren't international spies or other sorts of
covert agents, and don't own any files that critical, it's more a
curiosity than a concern.

I hardly meet up with my Russian handlers anymore. Or at least, no one
is showing up at the dead drops down by the old bridge. And Natasha is looking a bit old in the tooth anyway......
---
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