Securely delete files...

[Chris De Young]

Robert J. Hansen wrote:
> Faramir wrote:
>> lets say I just want to avoid recovery software like "get data back"
>> being able to recover a file. Is there a reliable way to do it
>> without going to "extreme" solutions?
> 
> No.

It's not clear to me why this is the case; it seems to me that if you're only
worried about access that uses the drive's own process for getting bits off the
platters, then a simple overwrite (and only once) would be sufficient. If you're
going to try to read the drive using the drive's own read/write heads and
firmware (which all of these software applications do, right?), the most
recently written bits are the only ones that should be available.

That doesn't protect you from someone who wants to take apart the drive in a
clean room and spend lots of money reading it other ways, of course, but that
seemed out of bounds from the original question.

-C

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