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SubjectRe: Wanted: Secure-delete utility for Linux

There's a very good paper on the subject given at a Usenix Security
Symposium, I think 2 years ago. It showed exactly how much information
you could glean off of a magnetic disk platter using an electron
microscope to read out the old magnetic domains. It was absolutely
spooky --- he was able to read data that had been written several write
generations beforehand. That's why secure deletion programs will do
20-30 write passes, and I believe that for highly classified data, even
that's not good enough. (Sandblasting the magnetic media off the
platters --- when you care enough to destroy the very best. :-)

So it's not just super-spooky three-letter agencies that can pull off
this sort of thing. It's something doable for folks with access to
openly available technology (at least to those of us who hang around
universities or other research facilities).

- Ted

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