secure data erasing

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya wolfgang

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 Wolfgang S. Rupprecht at wsrcc.com wrote:

> If you find a degausser strong enough to erase the disk data then you
> will also be erasing the tracking track's information, the spares /
> bad-block data,

that'd be okay ...  one would hopefully lowlevel format a used disk
before they use it

> and perhaps the drive's second-stage firmware.

that stuff should be in eeprom ?? magnetics should not erase it
but uv will ..
	- if they used solid state flash instead .. that'd
	be another problem too as you say, strong magnetics might 
	screw up the disk controller firmware

>  Save
> yourself the trouble and hit it with the big hammer.  The result is
> the same and you save yourself a lot of hassle.

they're tending toward a hammer for couple of disks ..

other disks, can be recycled ..

> Personally I just fill my old drives with zeros using dd(1) to write
> to the raw device from /dev/zero.

that'd be my bet too ... but not until they give up on the buying or
renting the $3K or $10K degaussers .. :-)

>  Anyone that has the technology to
> read once-erased data is also going to have the technology to read
> data from the computer using non-contact means, or do some B&E and
> just duplicate the disks still in the computer when nobody is around.

yup ... all their disks is already pulled  off/out of the systems,
which makes it even easier for it to find legs
	- orders of magnitude less secure than using dd to erase data

c ya
alvin