Re: Program to wipe data from disk free space

["Kurt Seifried" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

> Obviously I failed to adequately explain the purpose in my post.  It was
> triggered by the article "Hard drives offer up secrets" as posted in the
> message "RE: Windows HD image for forensics testing" by madmex.  I am
aware
> of the residue of information left on a hard drive that has been
> overwritten; though I believe that most techniques to recover that data
> require opening the hard drive case and special equipment.  I also believe

Nope. Most drive recovery is done via software (i.e. not cracking the disk
open).

> that in order to overwrite data to the standards you and others have
> mentioned require special drivers that are probably OS/hard drive
> specific.  Since it is (to the security aware community) well know that

Nope. Depending on how the drive is used however problems can present
themselves. If this is your currently active boot drive you can't simply
wipe the whole thing. OTOH if it's just a data drive you can move the
information off, completely wipe the drive, reformat and move the data back
(thus removing old version of the info, possibly inaccessible bits, etc.).

> formatting a drive is a waste of time I felt that offering something that
> could be run on most any architecture (probably even DOS) by people with
> little or no knowledge programming (though obviously they would need a
> compiler) would be something useful.  If I had a hard drive that stored

Why not just direct them to a trial version of a program that actually works
properly, or freeware software.

> something sensitive (like that in an ATM) I would physically destroy
> it.  The salvage value of the drive is miniscule in comparison to the
> potential value of the information.  But if I have a drive that is from my
> personal home machine that is being donated to a school I feel this is
> quite adequate for my protection.

I'm not sure what this tangent is about.

Kurt Seifried, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
A15B BEE5 B391 B9AD B0EF
AEB0 AD63 0B4E AD56 E574
http://seifried.org/security/



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