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Even paranoids have enemies

posted by Zed on June 23 2003 22:50

Remember this story about how most second-hand hard drives have recoverable files left on them, many of them containing significant personal data? I do.

Did you know that Norton Utilities’ Wipe Info has a mil-spec deletion option? I did. From the manual :

When you select Government Wipe, Wipe Info does the following:
The data is overwritten with 00s, and then overwritten with FFs.
A random value, or a value that you choose from 00 to FF, is written.
The value written is verified to ensure that it was written correctly.
The process is repeated as many times as you specify, up to 100.

Did you know that performing a Government Wipe on an 8G hard drive takes for-freakin’-ever?

I didn’t, until tonight.

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