Secure Delete utilities for Linux EXT3

[James McDonald]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shawn Tayler" <stayler at xmtservices.net>
To: <linux-users at linux-sxs.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: Secure Delete utilities for Linux EXT3


> On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 07:22:58 +1000 James McDonald
> <james at jamesmcdonald.id.au> exclaimed:
>
> > >dd if=/dev/zero of=/partition/you/want/wipe/clean
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > Yes I know about this command but it's a little indescriminate as a free
> > space cleaner.
> >
> > I'm looking for something similar to sysinternal.com's sdelete utility
> > that uses Windows Defrag API to idenitify free space and overwrite it
> > with zero's or random stuff.
>
> Couldn't you use /dev/random as the source?  There mustr be a simple
> elegant solution to this....
>
I think this is one of those things that needs a special utility/kernel
patch created by someone who knows the way the system identifies on-disk
free space which then overwrites free space with zero/random content or by
using a delete utility/system call that always swipes files and not just
unlinks them.

Sadly however I am not a programmer and can't spend the time to learn C then
learn the code to create an application that would do it. So if anyone sees
a free space swipe utility in their travails let me know.