Re: Still no secure rm in pre2.0.4

Bryn Paul Arnold Jones (bpaj@gytha.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 16 May 1996 02:27:37 +0100 (BST)


On Wed, 15 May 1996, Marek Michalkiewicz wrote:

> Hi,
>
> .... secure deletion ... ext2 filesystem ... disabled ... bad
> interactions ....
>
> Now that we have the kernel random number generator, it could be used
> here too, instead of the simple predictable one.

In a question, why ? Woulden't writeing zero's over it work ? (or 1's if
you prefure), the way I see it, you only need cryptografically secure
numbers to slow down a hardware attack (ie "they" have the HD, don't put
anything on floppies, or burn them after use ;)

> If the random device
> is made a config option and it is disabled, we could simply fill the
> deleted disk blocks with zeros - if you are paranoid about such things,
> you probably have the random device enabled :-).
>

And you seem paranoid to me, I like zeros, and it dosn't suck away all
the entrpy in your pool ;)

> A program to clear all unused space on a filesystem would be nice...
>

Yep, paranoid ;)

> Regards,
>
> Marek
>
Bryn

--
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