4 ms·
For anyone curious as to how, GNU `shred` can do that. Something like: `shred --force --zero /dev/sda` should wipe the whole drive, overwriting 3 times (the d
by sharedfrog 7y ago
For anyone curious as to how, GNU `shred` can do that. Something like:
`shred --force --zero /dev/sda`
should wipe the whole drive, overwriting 3 times (the default) with random bits and once with all zeroes.
- a012 7y agoNothing is more secure than wipe them with a hammer
- seb314 7y agodepends on your threat model... if peaces bigger than dust are left over, they might still contain quite a lot of info, right?
- sharedfrog 7y agoDo both!
- tyingq 7y agoAren't commercial degaussers still a thing? A hammer still leaves big chunks.
- genera1 7y agoThey are, and aren't that expensive. Our IT support team has one for workstation drives in a company with around 1000 employees.
- vidarh 7y agoIf you mean a big sledgehammer, maybe. Speaking from experience, even with a chisel making more than a dent in a modern harddrive with a hammer in ways that can't be fixed by replacing a pcb or other parts is hard work.
- jki275 7y agoUnfortunately this is not necessarily effective on modern SSDs.
- darkmighty 7y agoWriting random bits is more or less guaranteed to work on the bulk of the data. There are small caveats with caches, degraded cells, and other degradation management mechanisms, but I would be quite surprised if anything can be extracted; the chance of have a critical piece of data remain recoverable (at great effort) should be insignificant for most applications. I do wish manufacturers would make a 'wipe all memory and caches' command, but it's not exactly in their interest to ease resale of used hardware... (it could be pitched as increased customer value). This whole destruction thing is very economically and environmentally nonsensical to me.