[Rule] Data wiping boot disk

[C David Rigby]

Securely wiping data is usually but not always straight forward. I good
discussion of some of the issues is provided in the discussion of the GNU
fileutils "shred" command:

http://www.gnu.org/software/fileutils/doc/manual/html/fileutils.html#shred%20invocation

If a business really cares about not letting its data be dispersed into the
environment, then it needs to be as sure as possible that the physical
repository of that data, its hard disks, are not discarded with the data
still available. Since it is a business, it needs to perform the task in the
least expensive manner possible. Sadly for recycling, this means destroying
the hardware.

If you offer to securely erase disks as part of receiving a donation, and
the data still gets out and is used for some sort of unpleasantness, you
would probably be legally liable for damages. In the US & probably in
Europe, at least, you can pretty much count on being sued.

Still, for home users or others with less intense security needs, shred
should be good enough. A bootable floppy may or may not have it (bootable
floppy distros usually use busybox, and that does not seem to support shred
functionality (per a quick scan of the busybox command list here:
http://www.busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html). Shred is probably available
on most of not all bootable CD distros as part of the fileutils package.

I like the idea of a tool for this purpose. I do not have time to work on it
myself (a new job in yet another country has absorbed my life once again).
However, a bit of googling may well turn up a tool that will do the job and
which is free/libre.

CDR


On 2/9/07, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> According to my reading and research, one of the major things that
> stops companies donating old PC hardware to charity, at least here in
> the UK, is the fear that corporate data may be left on the hard disks
> and that this might fall into the wrong hands.
>
> I have also read of a thriving business in Nigeria today, scouring old
> PCs from Europe for data, for use either in blackmail, email scams,
> spam or similar. (As a child, I grew up in Nigeria, and I find this
> highly plausible!)
>
> So what I was wondering was this.
>
> Is there such a thing as a minimal Linux distro (say) which can fit
> onto a bootable floppy disk, which just starts up, identifies all the
> hard disks in a system, and after lots of prompts, securely wipes them
> clean of all data?
>
> I have done some Googling but it was inconclusive.
>
> I imagine this means scanning all IDE controllers and maybe a bunch of
> popular SCSI and RAID cards, identifying all the disks, deleting all
> the files on them, then formatting the partitions, then removing the
> partitions and writing zeros or random data over all the sectors. If
> some internationally-recognised government-approved standard exists
> for data wiping, then something compliant with that would be good.
>
> If it could also be put onto a CD or bootable USB stick, that would be
> even better, but since we are talking about old kit that's being
> pensioned off and given away, then the trusty floppy is probably
> better.
>
> Is there anything like that?
>
> If not, anyone want to help me create it? :-)
>
> --
> Liam Proven · Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
> Email: lproven at cix.co.uk · GMail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
> Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 · Mob: +44 7939-087884 · Fax: + 44 870-9151419
> AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com · MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com
> Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk · Skype: liamproven · ICQ: 73187508
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rule-list mailing list
> Rule-list at lists.hellug.gr
> http://lists.hellug.gr/mailman/listinfo/rule-list
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hellug.gr/pipermail/rule-list/attachments/20070209/906e8c94/attachment.htm>