3 ms·

> Just as there is a nonzero chance of someone recovering your data by reading /dev/urandom. That variety of non-zero is much closer to zero than the risk of i

> Just as there is a nonzero chance of someone recovering your data by reading /dev/urandom. That variety of non-zero is much closer to zero than the risk of increasingly-sophisticated equipment being able to recover overwritten data - and unlike the non-zero risk of such an "infinite typewriters" sort of attack, mitigating the non-zero risk of recovering overwritten information from media is straightforward: destroy the media. > The process of wiping SSDs is different because you don't do it by overwriting all of the data, but instead by initiating a secure erase. In other words: trusting an opaque blob of SSD firmware to overwrite all of the data for you.

charcircuit 4y ago
>zero than the risk of increasingly-sophisticated equipment being able to recover overwritten data No, it isn't. Reread the paper I referenced. The chance of recover exponentially decays which means the probability does quickly go to zero as the number of bits you want to recover increases. >trusting an opaque blob of SSD firmware to overwrite all of the data for you. No, you are trusting them to overwrite the encryption key and that the encryption being used is secure.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Reread the paper I referenced. I did. > The chance of recover exponentially decays As does the chance of a random number generator accidentally recreating your secret. And that's assuming, again, that technology doesn't improve. > No, you are trusting them to overwrite the encryption key and that the encryption being used is secure. 1. That's hardly any more reassuring (though at least it does hopefully mitigate overwriting concerns, assuming that key can't be recovered and the encryption method is indeed more secure) 2. That doesn't explain why secure erase commands take so long relative to other ATA commands (anywhere from seconds to hours), or why that time scales with drive size.

charcircuit 4y ago

>zero than the risk of increasingly-sophisticated equipment being able to recover overwritten data No, it isn't. Reread the paper I referenced. The chance of recover exponentially decays which means the probability does quickly go to zero as the number of bits you want to recover increases. >trusting an opaque blob of SSD firmware to overwrite all of the data for you. No, you are trusting them to overwrite the encryption key and that the encryption being used is secure.

yellowapple 4y ago
> Reread the paper I referenced. I did. > The chance of recover exponentially decays As does the chance of a random number generator accidentally recreating your secret. And that's assuming, again, that technology doesn't improve. > No, you are trusting them to overwrite the encryption key and that the encryption being used is secure. 1. That's hardly any more reassuring (though at least it does hopefully mitigate overwriting concerns, assuming that key can't be recovered and the encryption method is indeed more secure) 2. That doesn't explain why secure erase commands take so long relative to other ATA commands (anywhere from seconds to hours), or why that time scales with drive size.