Topic awaiting preservation: Secure data wiping and recovery testing...

Hello people... how you all doing?

We all know that deleted files on a Windows system are not really deleted so I wonder if anyone can suggest any secure data wiping or shredder programs that will make ALL data recovery ABSOLUTELY impossible on an NTFS file system. (even by a professional data recovery services laboratory), and then some app that I can scan and check the 'unrecoverableness' of these so called deleted files.

What do you all use?

Peace

[This message has been edited by Xpirex (edited 07-20-2003).]

The only thing I know of that fits this category would be WipeInfo, which is part of the Norton Utilites Suite. I don't think you can buy it as a standalone though.

I can't really tell you how well it works, seeing as that I rarely use it, but it claims to completely erase any files you run through it.

The last 3 on this page might be of interest. If you do a google for 'killdisk' which I used about 5 times in the past 2 weeks, that will put you on the right path... then start looking at sites...
but these just might be what you're looking for.
http://www.securityfocus.com/products/category/116

Here you can find some secure file deletion tools: http://www.webattack.com/freeware/security/fwerase.shtml & http://www.webattack.com/Shareware/security/swerase.shtml

btw, as far as I know,
overriding the data with 0's once is enough for comercial* data recovery laboratories to be unable to restore it.
They are far more sophisticated about physical damage to the drive, where they can work miracles, but once
you have written over the bytes, they can't do anything.

(meaning that it would still be theoretically possible, but so freaking expensive (ie. research and development would have to be done,
you'd probably need a elektromagnetic microscope and would have to scratch off each bit by itself), it would be much cheaper to find another
alien aircraft construction plan. One that was not wiped out ;-)

cute...

1.) Find a large subwoofer speaker (12" or larger)
2.) Place hard drive next to magnetic coil (may stick, this is normal)
3.) Leave for 1 minute or more. Also try moving back and forth along magnetic coil.
4.) Remove hard drive and all data will be erased

A standard ball-peen hammer works as well, although this may impair future use of drive and void warranty.

Well, yes I guess that would certainly do the trick...

...or you could try a brick of C4...


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I'd prefer the magnetic one... the c4 might still leave the data on the shattered disks.

Oh, but you gotta open the case first. You wouldn't believe how much magnetic flow harddisk cases shield nowadays...

I heard a rumour that one of the tricks used to recover data is to dissect the swap file and any other temp files that may be lying around. Might be worth looking into.