speeding up hard drive wipe

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On 2020-09-26 13:17, R C wrote:
> On 9/26/20 5:24 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
>> On 2020-09-25 19:47, Noah wrote:
>>> Hi there,
>>> 
>>> I am using the wipe binary to erase a drive.  My hard dive is a 6TB
>>> SATA drive sitting in an USB drive box.
>>> 
>>> $ sudo wipe -q /dev/sdc
>>> Okay to WIPE 1 special file ? (Yes/No) yes
>>> 
>>> The UI is telling me that it will take over 10 weeks to complete one
>>> round of WIPE.
>>> 
>>> Any clues how to speed this up?
>>> 
>>> The following DD command took a few hours.
>>> dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdc bs=4k
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>> 
>> I've never seen or heard of anyone *actually* recovering data from a 
>> drive wiped by a simple overwrite such as dd does.  I've heard 
>> anecdotes about how it's theoretically possible, and if you cared 
>> about, say, the NSA *really trying* to get your data, maybe I'd be 
>> worried.  But in the real world?  I'm just not.  If you really care, 
>> do another wipe with /dev/urandom, and call it good: most of your bits 
>> will have been randomly overwritten, twice.  I just don't see data 
>> coming back from that.
>> 
>> $.02,
>> 
>> -Ken
>> 
> 
> It is not only theoretically possible, it is definitely possible to
> do.  Granted, trying to do that at home, or with "regular" computer
> equipment, it would not be really reliable, consistent, if even at all
> possible. However, in classified environments very drastic measures
> are taken, to great lengths, to destroy data, however the d

Citation, please.

Look -- I understand the government goes to great measures to ensure 
data protection, and I don't argue that.  But you assert that it is 
"definitely possible."  If you don't have a link that upholds your 
statement, I will consider that just another anecdotal assertion lacking 
evidence.  I know quite a bit about how hard drives work, what DSPs can 
do with incomplete data, etc., etc., and while I don't think it's 
entirely infeasible, I am yet to see *proof* that anyone has actually 
gone and done this.  And until it's supplied, I'm firmly in the 
skeptical column.

$.02

-Ken