[Ryedale] wiping hard drives

[Al Girling]

Thanks for the response Paul,

Paul Teasdale wrote:
> On Tuesday 22 Aug 2006 14:19, Al Girling wrote:

--%<-- 

> > I personally prefer the big hammer approach, but then I'm slightly
> > paranoid. I do wonder if encrypting sensitive documents with GPG might
> > be a solution, but against that there will have been un-encrypted
> > versions on the machine which may be recoverable.  I realise that since
> > this was discussed the improvements in software to hide data will have
> > improved, but so too will have the criminals ability to recover it!
> >
> I don't think GPG is a fail safe solution for the exact point you set out 
> above (i.e. at some point in time there is an un-encrypted document lying 
> around). It may be slightly safer if the whole filesystem was encrypted but 
> it's still possible to decrypt with time and effort or more simply by 
> obtaining the key (that I have on a yellow post it note under the desk :)

Aaargh!  Still, I guess it's better than all those passwords on post it
pads stuck around screens all over the country. :)

> I don't know if it is possible to completely wipe a hard drive by overwriting 
> it a number of times with garbage, zeros or whatever. I know I certainly 
> wouldn't know where to start and recover it but maybe an expert would.

I suppose it comes down to how sensitive your files are and how
enthusiastic people are to recover that info.  Clearly the MOD want
nothing to make it out of their control, but third world crackers
sifting through recycled hard drives for bank account numbers and
information to commit ID fraud, well I don't know.  An idea has just
popped into my head.  I try contacting Nick from CompRec at York Uni to
ask if they take any measures before handing out machines.

Toodle pip,

Al

-- 
Al Girling

Home page:                  <http://al.sdf-eu.org>
Linux User: #290080         <http://counter.li.org>
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