Re: diskscrub and shred

[Pádraig Brady]

Jim Garlick wrote:
> 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.

Note since coreutils-7.1 shred has defaulted to 3 random passes:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=83ae1bdd

> 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.?

The verify step you mention, would address the TODO in the commit above.

cheers,
Pádraig.