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Gutmann's research paper today
From: gimeshell () web de
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 15:44:37 +0100
Hi, i'm trying to view Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" from today's point of view and wondering which information brought in this paper applies to modern effort to securely erase sensitive data. That is what he said, which may be of especial interest: "In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques. As a result, they advocate applying the voodoo to PRML and EPRML drives even though it will have no more effect than a simple scrubbing with random data. In fact performing the full 35-pass overwrite is pointless for any drive since it targets a blend of scenarios involving all types of (normally-used) encoding technology, which covers everything back to 30 +-year-old MFM methods (if you don't understand that statement, re-read the paper). If you're using a drive which uses encoding technology X, you only need to perform the passes specific to X, and you never need to perform all 35 passes. For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do. As the paper says, "A good scrubbing with random data will do about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is still true now." So there aren't any capable patterns to be written on modern PRML/EPRML drives to reach best results in sensitive data destruction? He explicitely stated to use "a few passes of random scrubbing". Am i misunderstanding something or you can really say, if you're writing to a modern disk, forget all special scrubbing technologies, don't use Gutmann, don't use DoS 5220.22M or other pattern writing technologies, only a few passes of random scrubbing will do the job? regards _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
Current thread:
- Gutmann's research paper today gimeshell (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Valdis . Kletnieks (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Frank Knobbe (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Mike Owen (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Frank Knobbe (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Frank Knobbe (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today gimeshell (Feb 08)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Valdis . Kletnieks (Feb 08)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Bipin Gautam (Feb 08)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Valdis . Kletnieks (Feb 07)
- Re: Gutmann's research paper today Thomas (Feb 08)