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Date:      Thu, 18 Nov 1999 12:00:47 -0500 (EST)
From:      Barrett Richardson <barrett@phoenix.aye.net>
To:        Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org>
Cc:        TrouBle <trouble@netquick.net>, David G Andersen <danderse@cs.utah.edu>, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: secure filesystem wiping
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.01.9911181153280.26794-100000@phoenix.aye.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.9911172210190.54860-100000@hub.freebsd.org>

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On Wed, 17 Nov 1999, Kris Kennaway wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, TrouBle wrote:
> 
> > obliterate only wipes the one file you specify.. i want to wipe all the
> > free space on the disk, without damaging good intact files on it, linux
> > has a progrtam called wipe that does this, now ill ask again is there
> > something similiar for freebsd
> 
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/usr/bigfile || rm -f /usr/bigfile
> 
> Replace /dev/zero with /dev/urandom according to taste.
> 
> Kris
> 

Excellant idea, and simple. The problem with modern encoding formats
is that the previous layer is still somewhat recoverable, and sometimes
layers before that. The obliterate program overwrites with carefully
chosen patterns intended to obscure the residual stray magnetic fields
left by previously written data.

A file that big will be a problem for obliterate though, it'll have to
be done in strips.

-

Barrett




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