Re: How to REALLY delete data
From: Mikko Nahkola (mnahkola_at_trein.ntc.nokia.com)
Date: 10/26/05
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Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 10:06:37 GMT
In article <Sux7f.15339$yH2.1587@news.cpqcorp.net>, Rick Jones wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>> Gerold Krommer <g.krommer@doremove.fns.co.at> wrote:
>>> I have the chance to aquire (for free) a nicely equiped D320 with
>>> quite some storage from one of our customers. The customer is a
>>> credit card company and the only reqirement from the customer is to
>>> reliably delete all data from the data disks (OS is separate and
>>> contains no relevant data). How can I delete the data so it cannot
>>> be reconstructed in any way whatsoever? dd zeroes all over? Format?
>
>> Please tell us which credit card company this is, so we can avoid it
>> like the plague! :-(
>
> Ditto. While they did happen to have the good sense to buy HP
> equipment :) That they would even begin to consider selling the discs
> with customer equipment on them is Bad News (tm).
You mean data, surely?
> And _they_ should be the ones wiping the discs, not you. As
> trustworthy as you likely are, they should not be trusting anyone
> outside of their organization with the procedure. Unless you happen
> to be a bonafide data security contractor or something.
Hey, it could be that the data isn't _their_ customer data. It could be
their old public-'net proxy, for example. I still wouldn't sell those
disks unwiped myself...
I don't use credit cards anyway.
>> But to answer your questions, including some which you did not
>> ask:
>
>> "not in any way"? Then the only solution is to physically destroy
>> the (platters of) the disks. Even LLF-ed (Low-Level Formatted) disks
>> can be (partly) read, given the right equipment and time.
>
>> Otherwise, if the disks are to be re-used (as in your case), use
>> "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/... bs=<large>".
>
> IIRC there are suggestions to do that dd with a number of different
> "if" settings - alternatively writing ones and zeros and perhaps even
> random data to the disc.
Then there's GNU shred (IIRC it's in the GNU coreutils package nowadays)
that does just about that - overwrites a file repeatedly. I have here
one with a man page that says that the default number of iterations is
25. Works on device special files too.
> However, as Frank says, the only way to be really sure that the data
> cannot be retrieved is to utterly destroy the discs - where
> "physically destroy" would be some combination of taking a grinder to
> the platter and melting the thing down.
Yes, either grind the platters down, or heat them beyond the point where
the magnetics lose it. Or something. A 20-lb hammer might do in a pinch.
-- Mikko Nahkola <mnahkola@trein.ntc.nokia.com> #include <disclaimer.h> #Not speaking for my employer. No warranty. YMMV.
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