Wiping Out Data

[Matthew Flaschen]

Jeffrey F. Bloss wrote:
> It should also be noted that utilities like shred and dd can be utterly
> useless on file systems like ext3

That applies when you shred an ext3 /file/, but in this case I told him
to shred the whole block device directly.  That will simply overwrite
all blocks, at a lower-level then the filesystem.  The drive isn't even
mounted, so there can't be journaling.  Afterwards, the filesystem is
destroyed (understanding it can still be probably be recovered by
sensitive forensics), so it is necessary to run mkfs .

However, almost all USB drives are VFAT by default anyway so this isn't
likely even an issue.

Matthew Flaschen