Perminate Deletion?

[sandman383]

Hello

I have a quick question for you all.

I have two old Winxp systems, one has a Maxtor HD that I want to totally wipe out for that I was going to use the Maxtor's Tools Maxblaster4 CD to clear it.

As for the other drive there is some material that I want to keep and others that I want totally get rid of permanently! Is there a program out there that you all could recommend that would wipe out selected files and directories making retrieval impossible?

Thanks for you help.

[Strogian]

cipher /w will overwrite all unused blocks on a filesystem, and it comes with Windows.

PGP also comes with a "secure delete" function.

[PriMaTe]

If it's that much of an issue destroy the hd and buy a new one

[sandman383]

Thanks for the reply....

I take it that cipher /w is a CMD command that will whip out the whole HD correct?
That would work with my one HD.

But what about the other HD? Would you have any recommendations for something that I can add to and work under Winxp that can permanently delete selected Files and Directories?

Also, you mentioned.
"PGP also comes with a "secure delete" function."
PGP ????

Thanks your help.

[ua549]

PGP = Pretty Good Privacy It was the first widely available public key software packages. It was so good the US Government sued the author for munitions law violations. www.google.com/search?q=pgp

[Strogian]

To answer your first question, cipher /w will not wipe out a whole drive. It basically just creates a file that is exactly the size of the unused space, which effectively wipes out all unused blocks. (So you could delete the files, then run cipher /w on the drive to overwrite the blocks.)

Obviously that is going to take a lot longer than a normal "secure delete" targeted at a specific file if you use it frequently ... the only advantage is that it comes with Windows. Also, the filenames themselves are probably still recoverable. I think I've seen PGP even rename the files a few times to overwrite that stuff.

[EonX]

PGP = Pretty Good Privacy It was the first widely available public key software packages. It was so good the US Government sued the author for munitions law violations. www.google.com/search?q=pgp

Very interesting stuff, I found this quite funny;

"Shortly after its release, PGP encryption found its way outside the United States, and in February 1993 Zimmermann became the formal target of a criminal investigation by the US Government for "munitions export without a license". Cryptosystems using keys larger than 40 bits were then considered munitions within the definition of the US export regulations; PGP has never used keys smaller than 128 bits so it qualified at that time. Penalties for violation, if found guilty, were substantial. After several years, the investigation of Zimmermann was closed without filing criminal charges against him or anyone else.

Zimmermann challenged these regulations in a curious way. He published the entire source code of PGP in a hardback book[7], via MIT Press, which was distributed and sold widely. Anybody wishing to build their own copy of PGP could buy the $60 book, cut off the covers, separate the pages, and scan them using an OCR program, creating a set of source code text files. One could then build the application using the freely available GNU C Compiler. PGP would thus be available anywhere in the world. The claimed principle was simple: export of munitions—guns, bombs, planes, and software—was (and remains) restricted; but the export of books is protected by the First Amendment. The question was never tested in court in respect to PGP, but had been established by the Supreme Court in the Bernstein case."

Exporting books..... lol

[ua549]

Phil was hounded by the Feds for years.

IIRC Phil also attended overseas symposiums to share his knowledge.

Phil's Home Page

[Freddy part deux]

Doesn't shift/delete get rid of it permanently? There is a program (I torrented it) called Evidence Eliminator. It claims to do Department of Defense level wipe of selected files and unused space as well as internet caches etc.

[ua549]

All shift/delete does is mark the file name entry in the index as available.
The file is intact until the area where it resides is allocated to another file.

If one has sensitive data on a disk device that is no longer used, it is best to physically destroy the device. I use a hammer and then feed the platters to my shredder just as I shred every piece of paper that is waste. Make sure to use a cross cut shredder so the pieces can't be reassembled as with a straight cut shredder.

[PointlesS]

I use a hammer

plus it's more fun that way

[Strogian]

Make sure to use a cross cut shredder so the pieces can't be reassembled as with a straight cut shredder.

Ahh.. No wonder all my data kept getting stolen. I was only shredding my hard drives using straight cut shredders.

[Freddy part deux]

Ahh.. No wonder all my data kept getting stolen. I was only shredding my hard drives using straight cut shredders.

The Russians have the best Puzzle assemblers in the world.