Re: Removing data in a secure manner?

[Ralph Kube <ralph_kube_(_at_)_gmx_(_dot_)_net>]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 02:49:24AM -0600, Joseph W. Shaw II wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, Rick Deckard wrote:
> 
> > I was just wondering what would be a good way to completely remove data
> > from a hard disk in OpenBSD?  Somehow using dd with /dev/random to the
> > disk device?  Three times in a row?
> >
> > Sorry for being a Noob but I'm still trying to learn Unix.
> 
> If the data is not encrypted, the only real way to securely delete it is
> physical destruction.
Thats what I think too. There was an article on slashdot recently which
was about the data findings on used hdds. Even if you overwrite your
data several times with different values (on the binary level), there
are still chances that you can tell the state of the magnetic field how
it was before. 
The thing is, that this is very expensive. I would guess that the
chances of rebuilding the original data after overwriting it several
times is very low.

Ralph