"secure" file flag?

[Wes Peters]

On Saturday 22 November 2003 02:54 am, Stefan Eßer wrote:
> On 2003-11-22 11:04 +0100, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at des.no> wrote:
> > Stefan Eßer <se at FreeBSD.org> writes:
> > > I may be way off, but I do not think, that a special thread or
> > > a cache flush after each block is required: [...]
> >
> > What happens if you yank the power cord?
>
> Worst case: The same thing that happened, if the you lost power
> a fraction of a second earlier, just before the unlink or loss
> of last reference to the file ...
>
> Nothing short of a self-destruct mechanism will do any better ;-)

Poppycock.  Encrypting the data before it hits the disk is a fine 
protection against somebody later recovering the data, either 
inadvertantly or nefariously.

> Back to the subject of this thread:
>
> You could write a special flag "needs to be securely removed" to
> the inode. That way, an interrupted overwrite process could be
> continued after next reboot (for example initiated by fsck).

But why would somebody trying to steal your data run fsck on it?  You're 
not thinking paranoid enough.

-- 

        Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

Wes Peters                                               wes at softweyr.com