Re: Shredd Files on Suse 9.0

From: Thomas (tdshepard_at_comcast.net)
Date: 01/24/04 

Date: 23 Jan 2004 20:44:41 -0800

Christoph Schwarz <gc.schwarz@web.de> wrote in message news:<busall$g1n$1@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com>...
> Hi NG,
>
> Suse Linux Vers. 7 had an entry in the file-context menu to Shred the file
> and not only remove it from the journal by just deleting or moving to
> Trash.
>
> Suse 9.0 does not have that option anymore.
> Does anybody know how to implement secure data-shredding?
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris Schwarz

You could use the utilities "shred" and/or "wipe," for example. I have
shred on my machine. I have also heard that there might be some
problem with shred and that one should use wipe instead.

I did use shred on a hard drive that I had to return to the
manufacturer. I was unable to read any kind of information from the
drive once shred was finished with it, using any software on my
system, including low-level stuff that reads directly from the
device-independent file. I figured that was safe enough to avoid some
future computer buyer from accidentally finding all my data on his
"brand new" computer. But if I were really paranoid, I would have
driven over the drive with my Hummer and just forfeited the value of
the drive.

Shred can wipe out a whole drive, just a partition, or just one or
more files. The algorithm it claims to use should render it impossible
to detect any previous data by any means, though, as I just said, I
did not try to verify that.

A google search (search for "shred linux" to avoid inundation by
irrelevant hits) should yield plenty of information.