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Re: shred, wipe, etc


From: Bob Proulx
Subject: Re: shred, wipe, etc
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 21:19:06 -0700
User-agent: Mutt/1.3.28i

Tad Walker wrote:
> 
> Do you know of any open source utilities to wipe free space on a
> drive.  It appears shred, and poossibly wipe, will securely delete
> either files or partitions.  I would like to wipe free space, and
> the only program I have found is van Hauser's secure-delete package
> from THC-- sfill specifically.

I think you have covered the big hitters in the file deletion arena.

> Would you consider adding sfill to your pacakges?

I personally would rather not add those utilities to coreutils.  I
personally would rather that shred had not been added previously.
None of those are truly general purpose utilities.  They really belong
in their own package and not in coreutils.

Those also are troublesome to make work on journaled filesystems.
Generally they may not work there at all since the journaling will
prevent them from doing what they think they are doing.

I am not saying those file wiping utils are not useful for people.
They appear very capable.  Just that their use is more of a niche use
and not general purpose enough for a general purpose utility package.
Remember, people run the coreutuls on PDAs and embedded systems too.

Just my two cents.

Bob




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