Erasing files in Ubuntu: other devices still see the files

[Dotan Cohen]

On 10/02/2008, Toby Dickenson <toby at tarind.com> wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>
>  > What gives? Why are these erased files still visible to other
>  > computers? And why can other Ubuntu machines not see the files?
>
>
> As I think youve already worked out this is not "supposed" to happen.
>  something has gone wrong. The question is, what? possibly...
>
>  a. You didnt do the sync you thought you did, or there is some other problem
>  on your kubuntu machine that caused the problem. maybe bad ram? I can
>  assure you that normally kde does not do what you describe.

That is possible, though unlikely. Assuming that I did make a mistake,
and simply sent the files to the Trash instead of deleting them, then
how can one delete them now that Ubuntu does not see the files?

>  b. Some problem on your memory stick which means it is corrupting data. In
>  this case, the directory index. This would be unusual, but not impossible.

This could be, but then I'd assume that Ubuntu would see the files as well.

>  c. The software in your DVD player has a bug which means it shows deleted
>  files. Can you try looking at your memory disk using some other computer?

I'd call that a feature :). I will be at the university tomorrow and
have access to Windows computers there, so I'll check. However, I'd
like to know that one can solve these problems with one's own
computer. The files are there (I can open them, not only see the file
names).

>  > How
>  > can I be sure that sensitive documents that I've erased are in fact
>  > gone?
>
> "Delete" is not sufficient to ensure that sensitive documents do not get
>  exposed. This is actually a difficult problem on any operating system.
>  Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence for more information.

That is a good point. Maybe the DVD drive is not even looking at the
index but rather the filesystem itself? I'll try to fill the drive up
to it's 1GB limit and see if:
1) I can
2) The ghost files remain

Thanks.

Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?