wiping partitions

[Jorge Almeida]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Shawn Tayler wrote:

> 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?
>
I'm shred'ing right now. But I think the program I mentioned had a more
elaborate strategy regarding patterns.

Jorge