Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:38:27 -0800 From: "Jason C. Wells" <jcw@highperformance.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Gutmann Method on Empty Space Message-ID: <4791A8F3.7090601@highperformance.net> In-Reply-To: <20080118175831.72929086@gumby.homeunix.com.> References: <478F0D5A.9090107@highperformance.net> <20080117081414.GB12470@draenor.org> <478F1049.3000706@boosten.org> <20080117083837.GC12470@draenor.org> <20080117094332.K1563@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20080117090210.GD12470@draenor.org> <478F8980.1090301@highperformance.net> <20080118175831.72929086@gumby.homeunix.com.>
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RW wrote: > On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:59:44 -0800 > "Jason C. Wells" <jcw@highperformance.net> wrote: > > >> Gutmann method might be excessive but any software that uses it shows >> a seriousness about security. > > Gutmann himself regards the continued use of his method as "Voodoo" Yes well. We lay people have only the best voodoo to go by. There are many things that I do with computers that can be called voodoo by virtue of the fact that I do them superstitiously. And if I don't happen to know the optimal patterns/passes to apply to a specific drive, then I'll do what was last known to be adequate until I hear otherwise. (As I have just now.) It's interesting to note that Gutmann's earlier work said, loosely "If you do this, you should be fairly certain you data is unrecoverable." He now says, "A few passes of random data is as good as can be expected." Those two standards of performance are very different. Too bad wikipedia didn't cite the follow on work. And no I don't want to physically shred my drive in a running server. I just want to make sure that any given day that the police come take my functioning computers way that nothing can be recovered that I explicitly deleted. The blank space should be blank. Later, Jason
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