NEC "Advanced Personal Computer"? & Secure data removal

[William Donzelli]

> My understanding is that one of the specifications for removing secure
> information from a hard disk requires writing zeros to the disk six or
> seven times. Norton Utilities (old version) had diskwipe and filewipe
> where you could specify how many times to write to the disk.
> 
> Some time ago, there was a discussion of how to recover data that had
> been overwritten. The only thought I have is that it would take some
> specialized equipment to read the disk and would take the hysterisis of
> writing to the disk into account. My guess is that the magnetic field
> would be such that after six or seven writes, the prior data would no
> longer be recoverable.

It is thought that NO amount of reading and writing will completely
scramble a disk. There is a reason why the NSA/CIA/FBI/military
disintegrates their disks.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org