Secure Delete utilities for Linux EXT3

[David A. Bandel]

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On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 11:45:25 +0200
Roger Oberholtzer <roger at opq.se> wrote:

> I have in a box, Norton Utilities for System V Unix. Aside from all
> the usual Norton stuff of a while back (the Commander, for example),
> it also had Norton's UnErase capability for Unix. It was a device
> driver that 'caught' deletes and made them into temp files instead. Of
> course, this was in the days when Interactive owned Norton, and so
> Unix was allowed...
> 
> In fact, a device driver is not needed. One should only need a libc
> preload module that wraps the functions that remove files and takes
> modified action. Like moving it to a holding directory on the disk.
> This way it could be file-system agnostic.
> 
> One good reason for not really needing a device driver is that if a
> device driver always saved all deleted files, a simple program compile
> could result in many unwanted saved files. The libc preload allows it
> to be very easily user and even command specific. Maybe only the 'rm'
> command for users.
> 
> Program trace utilities like valgrind do this sort of thing to system
> calls. I have not seen anything targeted at saving files.

That's because you don't need it.  Folks that are concerned about
deleting files they may need can replace the rm command with a function
when they log in that does exactly what you are asking.  Functions
follow aliases in order of execution (so make sure you don't have a
full-pathed alias for rm) but are instantiated before a call to a system
binary.  So google for a program called saferm, turn it into a function,
and you'll have your Norton safedelete/unerase capability.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
- -- 
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		Nemesis Racing Team motto
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