hacked by the (alleged) `amazon-security' scammers

[Bret Busby]

On 09/11/2021, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Nov 2021 at 01:30, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are mistaken. I've recovered
>> thousands of files for people off modern hard disks. That's the risk
>> that people are trying to avoid by scrubbing - that deleted files are
>> resurrected, which is definitely possible and does not require
>> expensive tools.
>>
>> As far as writing every sector 7 times or whatever though - that's
>> definitely pointless.
>
> Ah, I see what you mean. OK then: a single overwrite with zeros will
> make the data unrecoverable.
>
> The data-recovery theory of the '80s and '90s was that the edge of the
> old magnetic domains could be picked up with a microscope or some
> other hypothetical sensitive instrument. That might have been
> realistic when HDD tracks were millimetres wide, but now they fit
> terabytes into the same size platters that used to hold hundreds of
> megabytes, it's flat out impossible.
>
> A single overwrite is definitely enough.
>

With "the '80s and '90s" being mentioned, I have a memory of  a
feature of PC-DOS from the early 1990's, whence, in using a switch and
a variable value, with the format command, the character that was the
variable value (e.g. '1') would be written to every byte on a device,
as part of the formatting process. At that time, from memory, only
PC-DOS (from IBM) offered that feature.

For the original poster, I believe, although, I willingly accept
correction on this, that, providing that the computer is bootable,
and, given that the original poster stated that the desire was to
"scrub" the HDD, and, without the original poster stating that MS
Windows was wanted to be restored to the computer, a simple, clean
installation of Linux, from a USB drive iso, taking up the whole of
the hard drive, should sufficiently overcome whatever would have
existed on the HDD before that clean installation.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............