this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
514 points (97.4% liked)
Technology
59030 readers
3175 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Information theory aside: In practice all because you can't write bit-by-bit and if you leave full bytes untouched there still might be enough information for an attacker to get information, especially if it's of the "did this computer once store this file" kind of information, not the actual file contents.
If I'm not completely mistaken overwriting the file once will be enough to prevent recovering with logical means, that is, reading the bits the way the manufacturer intended you to, physical forensics can go further by being able to discern "this bit, before it got overwritten, was a 1 or 0" by looking very closely at the physical medium, details on how much flipping you need to defeat that will depend on the physical details.
And I wouldn't be too terribly sure about that electro magnet you built into your case to erase your HDD with a panic button: It's in a fixed place, will have a fixed magnetic field, it's going to scramble everything sure but the way it scrambles is highly uniform so the bits can probably be recovered. If you want to be really sure buy a crucible and melt the thing.
Also, may I interest you in this stylish tin-foil hat, special offer.