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Yay for open source - we don't need any amazon "1-click" type patents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4274811.stm
Where do you think you're taking that hard drive?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4272395.stm
Tux gets some green from big blue
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4276287.stm
So, you read the Beeb's tech section today, eh? :p
That software patent thing is good news. Too bad we aren't doing the same over here.
The HD link is interesting... are people just not formatting, or are they accessing "erased" data? I just sold a drive on Ebay, but I formatted it to a completely different format before doing so. Do you think that's enough? I had my MS Money files stored on there at one point. :(
> Do you think that's enough?
No idea - did your fdisk / format take a long time to complete?
If it did, my guess would be it wrote something to every single sector, in which case it's safe from Joe Public.
However, what the spooks down at "No Such Agency" HQ can do is another matter.
I recently heard about this tool for wiping disks - free of course
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
Well, I didn't use fdisk/format because the guy that bought it wanted requested that it be formated to NTFS, and AFAIK, the dos-based format program will not format to NTFS.
And Partition Magic 8 (what I used) didn't take long to move the partitions around or format it, so who knows. I had manually deleted everything (and emptied the respective trash cans) before formatting and it always seems as though it takes less time when the drive is empty (although I'm not sure why logically).
Who knows. I'm not that worried about it.
>>That software patent thing is good news. Too bad we aren't doing the same over here.
agreed. e-patanets impede the evolution of software and related technologies. Maybe i should move to europe :)
personally i dont so this but i know people who can easily... formatting is not-effective... formatting multiple times is better... like at least 8 times... still not enough but its better than one or two or 6...
i hear this is pretty good... unless you have a psycho...
http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/
and yeah on topic... software patents in the U.S. are insane...
Isn't it really effective to write random bits over it multiple times and then format?Quote:
Originally Posted by no-one
I thought I read that somewhere.
Holy crap we agree! :pQuote:
Originally Posted by no-one
>Isn't it really effective to write random bits over it multiple times and then format?
well... from what i was told... its been a little while, but the numbers have to be REALLY random and it still required many passes, to render the data "safe".
and no im not trying to scare anyone cause you'd have to have somebody pretty determined and who knows how... the knowledge to do it at that level, is not all that common.