[rescue] nuking from orbit

[David Cantrell]

"Jeremy Nielson" <jnielson at ihccorp.com> wrote:
> I remember reading something about a year, maybe year and a half ago, about
> a system the FBI or the NSA had devised, that could grab data from a
> magnetic medium, despite protective measures taken.

Depending on the protective measures taken, yes.

> The example given, was typical paranoid types wipe the disk and write
> consecutive zero's over the disk 7-10 times.  And the process could still
> glean like 70% of the data afterwards.
>
> If I can find the article, I'll post the link.

This <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html> is the
research you're thinking of, I would imagine.  The secure deletion method
outlined there is implemented in GNU shred.

The usual caveats for anything mentioning security apply :-)

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

   Educating this luser would be something to frustrate even the
   unflappable Yoda and make him jam a lightsaber up his arse
   while screaming "praise evil, the Dark Side is your friend!".
                              -- Derek Balling, in the Monastery