On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 03:24:12PM +0100, Jim Meyering wrote: > Toni Ruottu wrote: > > I've been trying to get Diskscrub ( > > http://*code.google.com/p/diskscrub/ ) to Ubuntu installation cd. > > Having it on the cd would be good as it'd allow one to boot from the > > cd and securely erase the entire hard disk. > > > > Usually getting a package to the cd is done in three steps: > > 1) get the software packaged > > 2) apply for official support from Canonical > > 3) prove that including the package on the cd is a good idea > > > > The software just got packaged and was included into Ubuntu universe, > > and obviously having such a tool on the cd is a good idea. So I got > > two of three covered. However it turned out that GNU Coreutils package > > contains a similar too called shred. Adding another tool with the same > > purpose was considered bad, as it would complicate things. Also a wide > > range of other systems ship with Coreutils preinstalled, so having a > > proper tool as part of the Coreutils is desired. > > > > It was decided that instead of adding yet another tool, we should try > > to get the developers behind the said tools to co-operate, and get all > > the useful features from Diskscrub merged into shred where they will > > be useful for a larger user community. So here I am delivering the > > message to whom I believe to be the lead behind the two projects. > > Sounds like a fine project. > Now all we need is someone willing to compare features and to > present the results. Maybe someone will even propose a patch or two.
Sorry for the delay responding - I was out on holiday last week. I think the main thing shred needs is the more modern 3-4 pass overwrite algorithms. Supposedly the full Gutmann algorithm is really only effective on MFM drives, and 3-4 passes is all you need on modern drives. As Toni points out, it would be extremely advantageous to have this installed on every machine that runs coreutils. I could prepare a patch to coreutils to make various overwrite patterns including Gutmann selectable via shred option and a NNSA NAPS-14.1-C compliant pattern the default (random, random, 0x00, verify). This would make my employer happy. Would such as patch be considered, Jim M.? Jim
