Are we paranoid?

The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.

But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
utilities:

https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete

You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build
it yourself.

If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
file can be totally nuked with:

srm -v file

For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.

To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
just do:

sfill -v directory/mountpoint

With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.

With Microslop you won't get much sleep.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.

Microslop allows the brain-dead to digitally finger paint.

Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote:

>Are we paranoid?
>
>The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>
>But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
>utilities:
>
>https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete
>
>You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build
>it yourself.
>
>If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
>file can be totally nuked with:
>
>srm -v file
>
>For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
>
>To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
>just do:
>
>sfill -v directory/mountpoint
>
>
>With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
>
>With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
>
>Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
>
>GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.
>
>Microslop allows the brain-dead to digitally finger paint.

In other words, per your previous comments about sex, you download a
lot of CSAM AKA child pornography, and you want to hide your tracks on
your hard drive (since you shun having a fucking SSD).

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 22:41:29 +0000, Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote in
<17c5f82935bc92a9$138448$3565594$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com>:

> Are we paranoid?
>
> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>
> But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
> utilities:
>
> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete
>
> You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build it
> yourself.
>
> If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any file
> can be totally nuked with:
>
> srm -v file
>
> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
>
> To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files just do:
>
> sfill -v directory/mountpoint
>
>
> With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
>
> With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
>
> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
>
> GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.
>
> Microslop allows the brain-dead to digitally finger paint.

SHRED(1) User Commands SHRED(1)

NAME
shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and op‐
tionally delete it

SYNOPSIS
shred [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION
Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to
make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing
to recover the data.

--
-v

On 4/13/2024 7:10 PM, Joel wrote:
> Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote:
>
>> Are we paranoid?
>>
>> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>>
>> But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
>> utilities:
>>
>> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete
>>
>> You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build
>> it yourself.
>>
>> If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
>> file can be totally nuked with:
>>
>> srm -v file
>>
>> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
>>
>> To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
>> just do:
>>
>> sfill -v directory/mountpoint
>>
>>
>> With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
>>
>> With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
>>
>> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
>>
>> GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.
>>
>> Microslop allows the brain-dead to digitally finger paint.
>
>
> In other words, per your previous comments about sex, you download a
> lot of CSAM AKA child pornography, and you want to hide your tracks on
> your hard drive (since you shun having a fucking SSD).

At first I didn't know what you were talking about, but then I
remembered Larry Pietraskiewicz posted a sickening message that he and
all children are sexually active - including intercourse - at ages as
low as 12 (but they just hide these things from their parents). Which
is total fucking bullshit, of course.

No wonder he loves Wretched Stallman so much.

Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote:
>
>> Are we paranoid?
>>
>> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>>
>> But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
>> utilities:
>>
>> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete
>>
>> You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build
>> it yourself.
>>
>> If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
>> file can be totally nuked with:
>>
>> srm -v file
>>
>> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
>>
>> To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
>> just do:
>>
>> sfill -v directory/mountpoint
>>
>>
>> With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
>>
>> With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
>>
>> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
>>
>> GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.
>>
>> Microslop allows the brain-dead to digitally finger paint.
>
>
> In other words, per your previous comments about sex, you download a
> lot of CSAM AKA child pornography, and you want to hide your tracks on
> your hard drive (since you shun having a fucking SSD).
>

Sounds about right,given that context.

Of course, they can *try* to hide, but they won’t be able to scrub the
records on the cloud owned by others.

In any event, a DoD grade secure overwrites, followed by a couple of passes
with a bulk eraser magnet, then a reformat & rerun the secure overwrites
will allow a HDD to be repurposed.

Then again, the likes of Feeb probably only has the likes of a $39 2TB HDD
anyway, so easier & faster to DIY incinerate it and spend a few bucks to
buy a replacement.

-hh

On 4/13/2024 6:41 PM, Lester Thorpe wrote:
> Are we paranoid?
>
> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>
> But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
> utilities:
>
> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete

Sez you? No thanks.

Even after deleting the file data, you might be able to recover:

- The name of the file and when it was created / deleted / modified.
- A cryptographic hash (or checksum, e.g. CRC32) of the file, from an
indexing database.
- Occurrence of certain words or phrases inside the file from a search
content index.
- Company name, product name, COM object interfaces, .NET namespaces,
etc. if it was a PE executable.
- A thumbnail if the file was an image.
- Various metadata from latent alternate data streams.
- Partial plaintext from temporary files and wear leveling sectors.
- Entire plaintext recovery from shadow copies or temporary files.

https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/31390/whats-a-good-secure-file-deletion-software

> You probably won't find this on any distro. You've got to build
> it yourself.
>
> If using an ext3 filesystem with "data=ordered" journal then any
> file can be totally nuked with:
>
> srm -v file
>
> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.
>
> To delete all traces of previously insecurely deleted files
> just do:
>
> sfill -v directory/mountpoint
>
>
> With GNU/Linux there is never a worry.
>
> With Microslop you won't get much sleep.
>
> Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
>
> GNU/Linux empowers the technical elite.

GuhNoo/Linux makes you an idiot liar who blindly claims you can't do
such and such on Windows, when you almost always can.

In this case:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete

On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 23:27:15 -0000 (UTC), vallor wrote:

>
> SHRED(1) User Commands SHRED(1)
>
> NAME
> shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and op‐
> tionally delete it
>
> SYNOPSIS
> shred [OPTION]... FILE...
>
> DESCRIPTION
> Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to
> make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing
> to recover the data.
>

srm is much better:

DESCRIPTION
srm is designed to delete data on mediums in a secure manner which can not be recovered by
thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. The wipe algorythm is based on the paper "Secure
Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security
Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of the leading civilian cryptographers.

The secure data deletion process of srm goes like this:

* 1 pass with 0xff

* 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.

* 27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.

* 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.

* Rename the file to a random value

* Truncate the file

As an additional measure of security, the file is opened in O_SYNC mode and after each pass
an fsync() call is done. srm writes 32k blocks for the purpose of speed, filling buffers of
disk caches to force them to flush and overwriting old data which belonged to the file.

==========

There is also "sswap" to perform a similar action on the swap file,
although it is doubtful that swap is still used much, if at all,
nowadays.

On 4/14/2024 6:26 AM, Lazy Larry Piet wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 23:27:15 -0000 (UTC), vallor wrote:
>
>>
>> SHRED(1) User Commands SHRED(1)
>>
>> NAME
>> shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and op‐
>> tionally delete it
>>
>> SYNOPSIS
>> shred [OPTION]... FILE...
>>
>> DESCRIPTION
>> Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to
>> make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing
>> to recover the data.
>>
>
> srm is much better:
>
> DESCRIPTION
> srm is designed to delete data on mediums in a secure manner which can not be recovered by
> thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. The wipe algorythm is based on the paper "Secure
> Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security
> Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of the leading civilian cryptographers.
>
> The secure data deletion process of srm goes like this:
>
> * 1 pass with 0xff
>
> * 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.
>
> * 27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.
>
> * 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.
>
> * Rename the file to a random value
>
> * Truncate the file
>
> As an additional measure of security, the file is opened in O_SYNC mode and after each pass
> an fsync() call is done. srm writes 32k blocks for the purpose of speed, filling buffers of
> disk caches to force them to flush and overwriting old data which belonged to the file.
>
> ==========

38 passes? Ridiculous (if it does that many on all types of drives).
Totally unnecessary and way too slow.

Gutmann's method is also worthless in some cases:
Table 3
https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf

Gutmann himself disavowed the use of 35 passes:

"performing the full 35-pass overwrite is pointless for any drive since
it targets a blend of scenarios involving all types of (normally-used)
encoding technology, which covers everything back to 30+-year-old MFM
methods (if you don't understand that statement, re-read the paper). If
you're using a drive which uses encoding technology X, you only need to
perform the passes specific to X, and you never need to perform all 35
passes."

He recommends shred for Linux, and the FOSS program Eraser for Windows
(https://eraser.heidi.ie)

https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html#Epilogue

Next time do some research before making another of your clownish claims.

On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 19:10:49 -0400, Joel wrote:

>
> In other words ...
>

Who cleans up when you shit the bed?

Hey! I say, who cleans up when you shit the bed?

Is it you or your lady boy?

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Can you afford a washing machine?
I would hope that you don't take those soiled bed
sheets to a laundromat. It would be a public health
nightmare.

Who cleans up when you shit the bed?

Huh? Hey! Answer the fucking question.

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:

>GuhNoo/Linux makes you an idiot liar who blindly claims you can't do
>such and such on Windows, when you almost always can.
>
>In this case:
>https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete

Interesting, another Russinovich utility. Not really something I'd
use since unlike Russell I don't have untoward data on my SSD, but it
shows that Windows has its share of this kind of available software.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote:

>Who cleans up when you [JWC] shit the bed?
>
>Hey! I say, who cleans up when you shit the bed?
>
>Is it you or your lady boy?
>
>Ha, ha, ha, ha! Can you afford a washing machine?
>I would hope that you don't take those soiled bed
>sheets to a laundromat. It would be a public health
>nightmare.
>
>Who cleans up when you shit the bed?
>
>Huh? Hey! Answer the fucking question.

I sleep fully clothed.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

Le 13-04-2024, Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> a écrit :
>
> For the extra paranoid, just mount as ext2 for no journal.

Why mounting a deprecated file system should be a good advice?
man btrfs

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

Le 14-04-2024, DFS <nospam@dfs.com> a écrit :
> On 4/13/2024 6:41 PM, Lester Thorpe wrote:
>> Are we paranoid?
>>
>> The smart people always say that we cannot be paranoid enough.
>>
>> But don't worry. GNU/Linux has the absolute best file deletion
>> utilities:
>>
>> https://github.com/gordrs/thc-secure-delete
>
>
> Sez you? No thanks.

I read his message to fast, I thought he was trying to recover files
deleted by mistake but he wants to avoid the recovery of files. There is
no alternative to physical destruction.

If you want to avoid physical destruction, on Linux, there is dd, but
it's not for the extra paranoids, it's only least worse. I don't know if
there is something similar on Windows. With dd, you can write random
values many times on your hard drive and the analyse will be more
difficult.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote at 10:26 this Sunday (GMT):
[snip]
> There is also "sswap" to perform a similar action on the swap file,
> although it is doubtful that swap is still used much, if at all,
> nowadays.

I use swap. On a side note, if you need to deal with sensitive data for
a short time, using a ramdisk is a good way to make sure it never gets
written.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On 4/14/2024 3:28 PM, Joel wrote:
> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>
>> GuhNoo/Linux makes you an idiot liar who blindly claims you can't do
>> such and such on Windows, when you almost always can.
>>
>> In this case:
>> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete
>
>
> Interesting, another Russinovich utility.

The latest version of SysInternals, as of 2024-02-13, has ~160
executables, but a bunch have 64 appended to the same name (so I suppose
the other one is 32-bit only).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

The readme.txt file describes 68 utilities in the suite.

No source code provided whatsoever, but I imagine Russinovich would like
to provide it, if for no other reason than to get feedback/improvements
from other programmers.

But the source to some of those utilities would provide clues about NTFS
and other Windows internals, so they won't release it.

> Not really something I'd
> use since unlike Russell I don't have untoward data on my SSD, but it
> shows that Windows has its share of this kind of available software.

There is a boatload of erasure software out there, of course

https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-destruction-software-programs-2626174