[ubuntu-uk] Shredding HDD data

[Bill Cumming]

i know!
I usually just use /dev/zero for day to day stuff, but if i've just got a
drive from someone, or giving it away, I usually run it through a dcfldd
wipe sequence of zero / urandom / zero just to be sure.. ^_^

On 11 August 2010 13:54, Tony Arnold <tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:

> Bill,
>
> On Wed, 2010-08-11 at 11:12 +0100, Bill Cumming wrote:
> > Best way is probavly just to use the "dd" command:
> > If you run off of a live CD then just point "dd" to the drive instead
> > of a file.
> >
> > Example: sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda
> >
> > That will overwrite the entire drive that's on /dev/sda with random
> > data destroying any Filesystem on that drive.
> >
> > You should at least do multiple alternating runs of
> > "/dev/zero" (quick) and "/dev/urandom" (slow)
>
> Only one run is necessary unless you think the CIA or GCHQ are
> interested in the data. Even then the equipment required to recover
> anything costs millions of pounds.
>
> You may want read about 'The Great Zero Challenge'[1] where a disk
> overwritten with zeroes using dd and the challenge was to recover the
> data. It ran from Jan 15th 2008 until Jan 15th 2009. Nobody took up the
> challenge!
>
> Regards,
> Tony.
>
> [1]
>
> http://hostjury.com/blog/view/195/the-great-zero-challenge-remains-unaccepted
> --
> Tony Arnold,                        Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 6093
> Head of IT Security,                Fax: +44 (0) 705 344 3082
> University of Manchester,           Mob: +44 (0) 773 330 0039
> Manchester M13 9PL.                 Email: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk
>
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
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> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>



-- 
Regards

Bill Cumming

Twitter: @s0l_uk
Skype: s0litaire
eMail: bill at s0l.co.uk
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