HDD "memmory"--->

Ok I was reading (again) in the FBI Oh my God thread that talks about how a hard drive could be read because of trails that it will leave and cant be totally over writen... I'm wanting to know if you can program Linux to make it that every time you delete something it'll overwrite it automatically and also in the temp area when it's finished using the files it terminates them by overwritting them 2 or 20 times... what ever you specify. In general I'm wondering if there is a way to program Linux to cover trails without effort of formatting free space every night... having programs delete and rewrite over files 10/20 times. Well I think it would definately be a worth while thing to put time into, I just want to know if it's possible.

(I hate when people say "anything's possible if you put your mind to it)... I know you could MAKE anything work but is it practicle?

Doesn't PGP have a feature called 'PGP Wipe' that overwrites files with garbage so as to make them unreadable?

To me it doesn't seem practicle to do but...to each his own.

Yes, its possible. I believe someone has already written a program that does that. I know there are some for windows... Although the windows ones are seperate programs, not just your normal recycle bin being converted to truly delete something.

there's a freeware prg called suredelete which you can set up to wipe free space..i believe it has a scheduler...and if not you can certainly set it up with a batch or whatever...the version i've seen is win...but they may have a *.nix version...google for it...

thanx everyone but do you know if they have developed a 'paranoid' linux? If not I think I would like to try (it would be good to test my knowledge and increase my programming skills). Well if anyone knows it'd be a great help. Thanks

May be you are looking for This: http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/fwipe.html

i don't know if someone already posted this, but maybe with their tecnology of reading the hard drives after the files are already over-written, but it might be better just to encrypt the file with a really strong encryption, then throw away the key, and then delete the encrypted file :D

just a thought....(i get lot's of em) :p

-Mike

yanksfan, yeah that is alright for 'sensitive' materials but I'm talking everything... if it's got the ability to be traced back to others or it's even my email from sears.com that I'm 'trashing' I'd like to know that I'm better off than the next guy who doesnt have as protective a OS. I'd like to think of my OS as a protective 'big brother' where he'd watch my back... Just cause I dont like the idea of someone down the road bothering me with an email I sent to someone in AU telling a joke that could be interpriated wrong and they send me to jail. Now the chances of that happening.... almost none but eventally someone has to win the lotto even with ten billion to one odds!

just curious: its possible to retrive the data if it's deleted, but can any data be retrieved if the hdd (or any drive -- floppy, usb, etc) is formatted?

I don't think so, not if it's been formatted, but I have heard of some proggies that'll bring back some data from the other proggies that claim 'sure delete' features. . .sorry no links, I reformat too much, heh heh.