The Great Zero Challenge

[Ian Batten]

On 7 Sep 2008, at 10:34, Peter Sommer wrote:

> Mary Hawking wrote:
>>
>> Data erasure programs seem to be both inefficient and expensive!
>
> You don't need to use dd, which is a command-line unix facility.   =20
> You can't use a Unix/Linux machine with dd on it to wipe a Windows =20
> machine because there would need to be some sort of network or =20
> serial connection between the two - and which would get deleted and =20=

> therefore be inoperable before the disk wiping was completed.

If you're handy with a screwdriver and don't mind spending ten quid, =20
USB enclosures for IDE disk drives are widely available.  Remove the =20
drive from the old computer, install it in the enclosure, plug it into =20=

your LInux machine with a USB cable, check three hundred times that =20
you know the difference between the internal drive (wiping this is =20
bad) and the newly inserted external drive (wiping this is the intent) =20=

and dd if=3D/dev/zero of=3D/dev/sda1 bs=3D1024k.  Use /dev/urandom =
rather =20
than /dev/zero if that's your thing.

=
http://pctradestore.com/code/ui/main/product.aspx?catid=3D8&subcatid=3D0&g=
clid=3DCMXPpOayyZUCFQiNHgodJAN-jQ

Appears to have the sort of thing for =A37.34, but Google shows any =20
number of similar suppliers.  Or you may have an enclosure like that =20
already you can re-purpose.

>
> THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS E-MAIL IS CONFIDENTIAL AND LEGALLY =20=

> PRIVILEGED.  IT IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE ADDRESSEE NAMED ABOVE. IF =20
> YOU ARE NOT THE ADDRESSEE ANY DISTRIBUTION, COPYING OR DISCLOSURE OF =20=

> THIS E-MAIL IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

Quite how this applies to mailing lists I don't know.

ian=