Bryna Bank/Jamie Lawrence wrote:

...

Though, technically, no disk can be securely erased, my program, Very Good Privacy, can securely delete files after they have been encrypted. I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but if it is, check out the VGP home page at: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2690

Ideally, I'm looking for a free space wiper, along the lines of what Burn 2.4 on the Mac can do.

As in, create a file the size of available free space, and then write garbage repeatedly to that file.

I've found "Real Deal", a TSR that intercepts the DEL command, but that's a poor substitute, at least for my needs.

I am attaching a program that does it for Unix. /******************************************************* wipedisk.c */ /* U N I X w i p e d i s k p r o g r a m .*/ /********************************************************************/ /* * Copyright(C) 1995, Igor Chudov, ichudov@algebra.com. * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License , or * (at your option) any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * along with this program. If not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. */ /* * Syntax: wipedisk /my/directory/filename */ /* * This program creates a file with a specified name (which you must * supply) and simply writes pseudo-random data into this file. It * deletes this file after it filled the whole disk with this file. * Actually it unlinks the file _right after_ that file was created * to avoid shitting all over the place with dummy files left in case * it was killed. * * Therefore, this program may be used to securely wipe (delete) all * data that does not belong to legitimate files. Pretty neat thing to * use with PGP. Note that I am not an expert in secure erasure of data: * if you use this program to delete criminal traces and FBI is going * after you, talk to an expert first :-) * * It wipes disk only once; call it several times for more secure * erasure. If you run it more than six times at once, consult with your * psychiatrist. * * Note that user filesystem quotas may conflict with wiping the whole * disk. Also, there may be some percentage of every filesystem (usually * 5%) that can only be used by root. It is best if this program is run * by root. Note that for a short period of time this program can make * all disk space used and not available for users. Please notify your * root if you plan to run this program, because running it can create * hardships for other users of your Unix system. * * It is best run from root's crontab in the middle of the night, * when everyone should be sleeping and not hacking. * * The file named in the argument 1 must NOT exist before program is * called. */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #define KILOBYTE 1024 #define PAGE_SIZE (1024 * KILOBYTE) /* This is a standard page size on my system. */ /* should be proportional to 1024 */ #define KB_PER_PAGE (PAGE_SIZE / KILOBYTE) /*********************************************************** randomize */ /* fills buffer with random data */ char * randomize( buf ) char * buf; { int i; int * ibuf = (int *)buf; int int_PAGE_SIZE = PAGE_SIZE / sizeof( int ); for( i=0; i < int_PAGE_SIZE; i++ ) ibuf[i] = rand(); /* So we set 4 bytes at a time, not 1 byte at a time */ return( buf ); } /************************************************************** main() */ int main( argc, argv ) int argc; char *argv[]; { int fd, i; char * buf; if( argc != 2 || !strcmp( argv[1], "--help" ) ) { fprintf( stderr, "usage: %s file-name-to-use-for-wiping\n" "This utility fills free space on disk with random garbage.\n" "There is NO WARRANTY!!! Covered by GNU Public License.\n", argv[0] ); exit( 1 ); } fd = open( argv[1], O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL ); if( fd < 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, "Can't open file %s for EXCLUSIVE writing\n", argv[1] ); exit( 1 ); } unlink( argv[1] ); /* let's unlink it now so that if someone kills me, the file with bullshit will be gone */ if( (buf = (char *)malloc( PAGE_SIZE )) == 0 ) { fprintf( stderr, "Wow, malloc failed. Your system must be royally hosed.\n" ); exit( 1 ); } srand( time( 0 ) ); for( i=0; write( fd, randomize( buf ), PAGE_SIZE ) == PAGE_SIZE; i++ ) { /* every time we write a newly randomized buffer and stop * writing when we cannot write any more */ if( (i % 1) == 0 ) { /* Just to say I am not dead */ printf( "%d Kbytes of pseudo-random data (rand()) written\r", i * KB_PER_PAGE ); fflush( stdout ); } } printf( "\nSyncing disk (wait 30 sec)...\n" ); /* Ughh... */ sync(); sleep( 30 ); printf( "Done.\n" ); free( buf ); /* I am a good guy */ close( fd ); }

Jamie Lawrence writes:

Igor -

Thanks for sending this. If I end up porting it, I'll send you a copy. I just wanted to wipe a client's disk. I'm a little surprised that there doesn't seem to be any tools for this on the PC. Another area where Mac's seem to be innovative...

The problem with running Igor's program on PC has to do with the last allocation cluster of each file: it's in use (so this program won't write over it), but it only has new data at the beginning, and might contain some interesting old data at the end. For the PCs, Norton Utilities (now from Symantec) include a wiping utility that addresses the above problem. Specifially for OS/2 HPFS, the Gammatech utility also include one. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Dale Thorn wrote:

It's a hundred times easier to do tools for the IBM PC. I make utilities for the PC, and it would take no more than ten or fifteen minutes to cook this one up.

It took me less than ten minutes...

But nobody answered my question: Is there a shortcut way to do the wipe, say, thirty times? Ordinarily, I'd run the program thirty times, which would consist of a data write followed by a flush, which would take 30x amount of time.

Try this in Linux... #!/bin/csh set n=1 loop: cat /dev/urandom >/tmp/fill rm /tmp/fill @ n = $n + 1 if ( $n < 30 ) then goto loop endif