Re: [tlug] Data rewrite technology

[Mauro Sauco <sauco@example.com>]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 10:46:28AM +0900, Lyle <Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon> wrote:
Lyle>I have a question that ties in with hard disk security and reliability - 
Lyle>or the balance between the two.  I don't know if it's still the case for 
Lyle>certain, but with the DOS file system, when you erased a file, it didn't 
Lyle>actually delete the whole thing, but only the first part of it, and then 
Lyle>the space occupied by the "deleted" file was marked as empty and 
Lyle>eventually would get overwritten with new data.  From a security

same, at least with the default file systems and the standard rm command 

Lyle>standpoint it was (is?) dangerous, as with the right software you can 
Lyle>cull amazing amounts of "deleted" data off of drives.  But - there would 
Lyle>seem to be two advantages to doing it that way - higher speed (since the 
Lyle>bulk of the data isn't actually deleted, it is nearly instantaneous) and 
Lyle>better longevity (the number of times the same magnetic medium can be 
Lyle>written and written is not infinite).  I bring this up, as I just 
Lyle>deleted two 60MB files on a flash memory card and it took quite a long 
Lyle>while (compared to W2K anyway).  

Too many missing factors to diagnose ..

Lyle>When deleting in Linux, is the 
Lyle>operation basically what some software refers to as "shredding"?

again, false for 'rm'command

man shred

//mauro//