Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 22:24:10 -0500 From: A Ling <ling@min.net> To: "questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Permanent file deletion? Message-ID: <3680625A.167EB0E7@min.net>
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In a DOS FAT file system, deleting a file means replacing the first character of its directory entry, and presumably clearing some bits in the file allocation table. So if you want to permanently delete sensitive files, you should first overwrite them (more than once) with various suitable patterns. If you wanted such a permanent file deletion utility for ufs, would it be as simple as writing these patterns, flushing buffered output between iterations, before unlinking the file? Or would some other aspect of the operating system, for example the virtual memory system, complicate matters? I cant seem to find this functionality anywhere, but would like to know if writing such a utility would require knowledge much beyond "Hello, world" (my speed); ie whether it's pointless for me, since I really don't have much opportunity to do extensive reading on gdb, much less the workings of the kernel, file system, etc. Thanks in advance -- Alex Ling, MD To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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