Re: Default number of overwrites in shred

[Jim Meyering]

Peter Eckersley <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-05-04 at 09:14 +0200, Jim Meyering wrote:
...
>> My reflex was to object.  Reducing the default number of passes from
>> 25 to 1 seemed extreme.  But after skimming through the link below,
>> it's hard to argue :-)
>
> Really?  For "Top Secret+" material, their "secure erase newsletter"
> calls for 2 write passes, offset slightly on either side of the track (p
> 4).

I too would feel better with a minimum of 2 or 3 passes, just in case.
Although a program like shred cannot choose how far from a track to write
its data, I have to wonder if one effect of its current 25-iteration
approach is to write with slightly different offsets.

If there are a couple of other big-name research labs that publish
similar findings, we can always reduce it further.