wiping partitions

[Shawn Tayler]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 08:13:33 +0000 (WET) Jorge Almeida
<jalmeida at math.ist.utl.pt> exclaimed:

> 
> 
> >>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2007, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> 
> Well, hammering a hd may be fun, but with my luck I would probably lose
> an eye to a flying case fragment. I said "within reason", which means I
> want to just forget the drive (keeping it for an emergency, perhaps) and
> I have nothing that would be remotelly interesting to any agency, but
> I'm paranoid enough to not want to leave a forgotten written hd behind
> in case I'm run over by a taxi...
> I read somewhere (sometime ago) that the best, software only, way to
> wipe a partition was to overwrite it in several passes with some
> patterns (not just zeros). There was some software to do that, but I
> can't remember which.  I was hoping someone would be using it.

Doesn't /usr/bin/shred do just this?

Shawn