Gutmann Method on Empty Space

[Jason C. Wells]

RW wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:59:44 -0800
> "Jason C. Wells" <jcw at highperformance.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Gutmann method might be excessive but any software that uses it shows
>> a seriousness about security. 
> 
> Gutmann himself regards the continued use of his method as "Voodoo"

Yes well.  We lay people have only the best voodoo to go by. There are 
many things that I do with computers that can be called voodoo by virtue 
of the fact that I do them superstitiously. And if I don't happen to 
know the optimal patterns/passes to apply to a specific drive, then I'll 
do what was last known to be adequate until I hear otherwise. (As I have 
just now.)

It's interesting to note that Gutmann's earlier work said, loosely "If 
you do this, you should be fairly certain you data is unrecoverable." 
He now says, "A few passes of random data is as good as can be 
expected."  Those two standards of performance are very different.  Too 
bad wikipedia didn't cite the follow on work.

And no I don't want to physically shred my drive in a running server.  I 
just want to make sure that any given day that the police come take my 
functioning computers way that nothing can be recovered that I 
explicitly deleted.  The blank space should be blank.

Later,
Jason