5 ms·
> If the crypto is strong, and the key never exfiltrated, then this may be even better than an explicit overwrite, which on some media (like magnetic drives) ma
by fpgaminer 5y ago
> If the crypto is strong, and the key never exfiltrated, then this may be even better than an explicit overwrite, which on some media (like magnetic drives) may still leave trace hints of the old data that advanced techniques could recover.
The idea that magnetic drives left readable traces behind after an overwrite is a myth (especially of modern drives; if I recall the article I'm thinking of correctly the myth may have had a _slim_ chance of being true with old drives [like 100MB days]).
- rootw0rm 5y agoI'm fairly certain you're correct, but the fact that various secure delete tools overwrite data multiple times probably helps propagate this myth.
- quaintdev 5y agoI wonder how it is even possible in those 100MB disks.
- thefurrysquid 5y agoLow density data, paired with not very accurate head tracking.
- rebuilder 5y agoThe idea was that, since the drive head doesn’t pass over precisely the same area on the track every time it writes to the disk, the track has to be wide enough to account for this lack of precision. Thus, a single overwrite pass could leave a portion of the track’s edge unchanged and readable with an electron microscope or something.
- Doxin 5y agoI always figured that a write wouldn't change the magnetic field 100%. Say it's 90% effective at changing the magnetic field. There's now four options: 1 overwritten by 0: 10% field strength 0 overwritten by 0: 0% field strength 1 overwritten by 1: 100% field strength 0 overwritten by 1: 90% field strength But I guess that's not quite true.
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoI looked into back in the day (but not quite as far back as that), https://alicious.com/secure-drive-data-wiping/ https://alicious.com/secure-drive-data-wiping/, couple of references there.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]