[OT] Destroying files

[Phillip Lenhardt]

In article <19991029083529.C29354 at xs4all.nl>, Thomas Wouters wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 28, 1999 at 05:37:34PM -0700, Jon Cosby wrote:
>> Yes, I'm on Windows 95. No, deleting files does not remove them from your
>> hard drive; They can be recovered by computer forensics experts or by nosey
>> hacks. I'm putting my PC up for sale, and the thought is troubling.
>
>If you are really afraid of people reading your files, DO NOT DELETE THEM.
>First, fill them with garbage, random data, by opening them and writing in
>them ( -- no use removing the file and creating a new one, it wont use the
>same disk-sectors)

If you were running OpenBSD, you could ``rm -P <file>''. The handy ``P''
option overwrites regular files before deleting them.  Files are overwrit-
ten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, then 0x00, and then 0xff
again, before they are deleted.

And the US military actually scrapes the magnetic media layer off their
hard drive platters when they _really_ don't want anyone to be able to
recover the data.