Path: ...!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: DFS <nospam@dfs.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: GNU/Linux is Best for Secure File Deletion
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 21:02:48 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 71
Message-ID: <uvf9vn$39fhb$1@dont-email.me>
References: <17c5f82935bc92a9$138448$3565594$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2024 03:02:48 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="b627255d71c2789b4351a9594b70debf";
	logging-data="3456555"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19qrALNnN+1fzBN9ncE4mv5"
User-Agent: Betterbird (Windows)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:TtzSvLNHRapXOWGGDRGAYcS4MLM=
Content-Language: en-US
In-Reply-To: <17c5f82935bc92a9$138448$3565594$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com>
Bytes: 2953

On 4/13/2024 6:41 PM, Lester Thorpe wrote:
> Are we paranoid?
> 
> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
> 
> But don't worry.  GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
> utilities:
> 
> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete


Sez you?  No thanks.


Even after deleting the file data, you might be able to recover:

- The name of the file and when it was created / deleted / modified.
- A cryptographic hash (or checksum, e.g. CRC32) of the file, from an
   indexing database.
- Occurrence of certain words or phrases inside the file from a search
   content index.
- Company name, product name, COM object interfaces, .NET namespaces,
   etc. if it was a PE executable.
- A thumbnail if the file was an image.
- Various metadata from latent alternate data streams.
- Partial plaintext from temporary files and wear leveling sectors.
- Entire plaintext recovery from shadow copies or temporary files.


https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/31390/whats-a-good-secure-file-deletion-software



> You probably won't find this on any distro.  You've got to build
> it yourself.
> 
> If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
> file can be totally nuked with:
> 
> srm -v file
> 
> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
> 
> To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
> just do:
> 
> sfill -v directory/mountpoint
> 
> 
> With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
> 
> With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
> 
> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
> 
> GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.


GuhNoo/Linux makes you an idiot liar who blindly claims you can't do 
such and such on Windows, when you almost always can.

In this case:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete