Shredder Function DOD?

Does the shredder function really wipe out the files? Does it conform to the Dept of Defense standards?

Have financial data on my old drive and want to make sure I can donate the old PC with surety that the financial data can't be recovered.

Thanks,
Chamlin

 

I may be completly wrong here, but my understanding was that these shredding programs simply write a lot of 1's and 0's over the area and the DOD specification related to how many passes was acceptable.

Perhaps its simply a matter of running the program a couple of times.

 

I think the DoD spec also specifies what byte sequence is written.

 

If this isn't DoD, what degree of certainty is Acronis offering? Anyone from Acronis ever respond to these boards?

 

Go to the Acronis site, www.acronis.com and do a search for Drive Cleanser. There are some product tours for it. On one of the screen shots it shows the various cleaning algorithms that are available. I can't say this is exactly what is enbedded in TI11 since I don't have it. Someone with it should be able to say what, if present, the selection screen says.

 

Have attached a screenshot i found. Does indeed look like it supports at least some of the different DoD specifications.

 

For those that are interested... here is the DoD standard that is listed in Drive Cleanser...

US Department of Defense 5220.22-M Clearing and Sanitization Matrix

a. Degauss with a Type I degausser
b. Degauss with a Type II degausser.
c. Overwrite all addressable locations with a single character.
d. Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify. THIS METHOD IS NOT APPROVED FOR SANITIZING MEDIA THAT CONTAINS TOP SECRET INFORMATION.
e. Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character.
f. Each overwrite must reside in memory for a period longer than the classified data resided.
g. Remove all power to include battery power.
h. Overwrite all locations with a random pattern, all locations with binary zeros, all locations with binary ones.
i. Perform a full chip erase as per manufacturer's data sheets.
j. Perform i above, then c above, a total of three times.
k. Perform an ultraviolet erase according to manufacturer's recommendation.
l. Perform k above, but increase time by a factor of three.
m. Destroy - Disintegrate, incinerate, pulverize, shred, or melt.
n. Destruction required only if classified information is contained.
o. Run five pages of unclassified text (font test acceptable).
p. Ribbons must be destroyed. Platens must be cleaned.
q. Inspect and/or test screen surface for evidence of burned-in information. If present, the cathode ray tube must be destroyed.

For more information regarding clearing and sanitizing security standard DoD 5220.22-M see US Defence Security Service Web Site (Chapter .

 

So which part does Drive Cleaner do? Surely it doesn't have ultraviolet capacity and I hope it doesn't have the "melt" capacity.

 

I would assume it relates to Removable Rigid Disk and would do d. Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify. THIS METHOD IS NOT APPROVED FOR SANITIZING MEDIA THAT CONTAINS TOP SECRET INFORMATION.

That's the only one that makes sense.

Run it several times if you want. I seriously doubt anything would be able to be recovered, even after one pass (unless extraordinary means were used).

 

I believe you are correct. I was a little involved with setting up some sanitizing many years ago. It was a simple matter to say we purchased program X and it will sanitize it. It was not a simple matter to prove to the security people that program X reliably did what it claimed to do on every sector of a certain model disk with a certain capacity. The only way to totally sanitize a disk is with hammer and torch.

In more practical terms, the Cleanser product is sufficient, if it works as described. Nobody is going to go to extraordinary methods to recover from a personal HD. Easier to get information out of trash cans.