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Re: Disk wiping -- An alternate approach?


From: Christian Sciberras <uuf6429 () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:04:46 +0100

I was thinking, since all this (reasonable) fuss on wiping a disk over 10
times to ensure non-readability, how come we're yet very limited on space
usage?
If, for example, I overwrote a bitmap file with a text one, what stops the
computer from recovering/storing both (without using additional space)?
Just a couple curiosities of mine.





On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Michael Holstein <
michael.holstein () csuohio edu> wrote:


By the way, does somebody knows about the flash memory?
Is zeroing a whole usb key enough to make the data unrecoverable?


No, wear-leveling (done at the memory controller level) will dynamically
re-map addresses on the actual flash chip to ensure a relatively
consistent number of write cycles across the entire drive.

The only way to completely "wipe" a flash disk is with a hammer.

Regards,

Michael Holstein
Cleveland State University

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