Re: [Pen-l] re the FARC computer

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill, I don't understand.  I though that the system magnetically writes a 0 or a 1 on 
each location & that programs are available that overwrite everything with 0's.  Are 
you saying that the spot on the drive can be a 0 with a residue of a 1?


On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 09:22:35AM -0600, Bill Lear wrote:
> Not reliably.  First, wiping an ENTIRE disk is easy, but you have to
> hit each byte on the disk with multiple patterns of write ---
> otherwise you risk leaving enough information to recover.  Writing the
> Bible over things just overlays those bytes on top of others and is
> sort of like writing 555-1212 down, then writing 123-4567 on top ---
> you can still make out the 555-1212 part, and you need to write many
> more things on top of it until it is fully obscured.
> 
> Wiping a single file is MUCH harder, as the operating system or
> application may have stored copies of it in various places (temporary
> files, swap space for the OS, etc.).
> 
> 
> Bill
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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