Secure Empty Trash

iHatePCs

macrumors member

Original poster

• Aug 4, 2004

• #1

Hey, I was curious, does securely emptying the trash make it absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to recover the file?

 

jsw

Moderator emeritus

• Aug 4, 2004

• #2

Outside of top-secret technology and an amazing amount of determination, yes.

Edit: Yes, you can technically recover information from a securely-deleted file. However, it's so difficult to do so that it is, for all practical purposes, effectively impossible.

 

K

kerb

macrumors regular

• Aug 4, 2004

• #3

jsw said:

However, it's so difficult to do so that it is, for all practical purposes, effectively impossible.

Click to expand...

the police/fbi/secret service could do it, only way a disk is completely clear of any information previously held on it is to write/rewrite on the disk something like 30 times.

 

virividox

macrumors 601

• Aug 4, 2004

• #4

you would have to reformat and write 0s to be sure several times 🙂 but that in itself isnt worth it

 

R

rock6079

macrumors 6502

• Aug 5, 2004

• #5

if u used filevault to secure ur home directory and they could not get a password. could they scan the ahrd drive and find files ?

 

jsw

Moderator emeritus

• Aug 5, 2004

• #6

rock6079 said:

if u used filevault to secure ur home directory and they could not get a password. could they scan the ahrd drive and find files ?

Click to expand...

In theory. In practice, no, not really. NSA probably could crack it. Local police couldn't. Of course, all you need to do is guess the password, which isn't as hard as you might think in many cases.

And, yes, they could scan the hard drive and find files. FV only protects a home directory. So those files would be encrypted. Of course, if your Mac's master FV password were obtainable, they could use that as well.

What the hell are all of you trying so hard to hide? Don't forget that, unless you wrote it yourself, there's probably a trail leading to your system as well.

 

emw

macrumors G4

• Aug 5, 2004

• #7

virividox said:

you would have to reformat and write 0s to be sure several times 🙂 but that in itself isnt worth it

Click to expand...

I was contemplating returning a Mac I bought (exchanging up, actually), and found an application called iWipe.

See the screen grab below for the "Super Paranoid" feature.

 

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jsw

Moderator emeritus

• Aug 5, 2004

• #8

emw said:

I was contemplating returning a Mac I bought (exchanging up, actually), and found an application called iWipe.

See the screen grab below for the "Super Paranoid" feature.

Click to expand...

Hee hee! That'd do it. Of course, it'd probably take a week to complete, but still.... 😉

 

superbovine

macrumors 68030

• Aug 5, 2004

• #9

kerb said:

the police/fbi/secret service could do it, only way a disk is completely clear of any information previously held on it is to write/rewrite on the disk something like 30 times.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I have to correct you. all those organization would have to defer to probably the NSA or contract firm to recovery data over that erased with with 7 passes according to DoD 5220.22-M (NISPOM 8-306 E,C, and E).
http://www.dss.mil/search-dir/isec/chapter8.htm

The Gutmann Method, which the NSA has declared has securely deleted is 35 passes.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

 

R

rock6079

macrumors 6502

• Aug 6, 2004

• #10

jsw said:

What the hell are all of you trying so hard to hide? Don't forget that, unless you wrote it yourself, there's probably a trail leading to your system as well.

Click to expand...

absolutely nothing, but i figured it couldnt hurt to ask the question