Secure Empty Trash

[iHatePCs]

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

 

[jsw]

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.

 

[kerb]

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

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]

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

 

[rock6079]

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]

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 ?

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]

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

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.

 

[jsw]

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.

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

 

[superbovine]

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.

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

 

[rock6079]

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.

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