Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Sir William Wonka on August 14, 2013, 12:55 pm
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Hey guys sorry for the n00bish inquiry but how do I erase all my computer data from a windows system. I know how to reformat but I am wondering how I can make the data irretrievable. Thanks guys.
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"DBAN is a self-contained boot disk that automatically deletes the contents of any hard disk that it can detect."
http://www.dban.org/
Next time after you installed your operating system, use full disk encryption, e.g. with TrueCrypt. Then you'd just need to "forget" the passphrase to securely erase the data. Don't use the Bitlocker encryption of Windows however.
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In order to permanently destroy data you need to overwrite it. Formatting only overwrites the file system (if that) and leaves the file data intact. DBAN allows you to wipe the entire hard drive which is really the best choice for any kind of emergency situation. If there's doubt, don't just wipe a file or two and run an "evidence cleaner" program. DBAN that shit and get rid of everything.
You can download a program such as Eraser (CLEARNET WARNING: http://eraser.heidi.ie/) to securely wipe files one at a time too.
Don't even worry about the kind of overwrite pattern; just pick the fastest one with the least amount of overwrites. A single pass is enough to get rid of data from any modern hard drive. Those "Guttman wipe" methods are meant for older drives, and the DoD 7 pass wipe pattern is a waste of time unless you're actually erasing state secrets or something.
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Ah see I thought dban was only for windows. I will look into truecrypt. And Dban is something i can run off a usb port?
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Yup. Here's a tutorial on using a 3rd party tool to run DBAN off a USB drive: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-dban-to-a-usb-flash-drive-using-windows/ (CLEARNET)
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You can use DBAN, you can use a live Linux (like Partition Magic or Ubuntu), you can even use the Windows installation disk.
During partition steps make sure to format the Windows partition completely, that means no "quick" format!
DBAN by default overwrites your HDD 3 times, but once is enough in most cases. Maybe two times if you are really paranoid.
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During partition steps make sure to format the Windows partition completely, that means no "quick" format!
Good point! Starting with Vista, all Windows install disks will overwrite the partition whenever a full format is selected.
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It's interesting how there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of people asking about secure data erasure since the FH exploit.
Maybe that's just a coincidence. Certain kinds of security questions seem to come in waves. We may get a dozen threads about VPNs in a week and then nothing about VPNs for a month. However, this is probably not a coincidence.
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It's interesting how there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of people asking about secure data erasure since the FH exploit.
Maybe that's just a coincidence. Certain kinds of security questions seem to come in waves. We may get a dozen threads about VPNs in a week and then nothing about VPNs for a month. However, this is probably not a coincidence.
CP conspiracy? ???
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^^True, the pattern is especially strong this time. Makes you wonder what some people were looking at haha :P
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Thanks guys
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It's interesting how there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of people asking about secure data erasure since the FH exploit.
Maybe that's just a coincidence. Certain kinds of security questions seem to come in waves. We may get a dozen threads about VPNs in a week and then nothing about VPNs for a month. However, this is probably not a coincidence.
CP conspiracy?
Makes sense, there have been tons of people asking lately.
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It's interesting how there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of people asking about secure data erasure since the FH exploit.
Maybe that's just a coincidence. Certain kinds of security questions seem to come in waves. We may get a dozen threads about VPNs in a week and then nothing about VPNs for a month. However, this is probably not a coincidence.
Haha I noticed the same thing, everybody is wiping their stash of jailbait.
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You can download a program such as Eraser (CLEARNET WARNING: http://eraser.heidi.ie/) to securely wipe files one at a time too.
People should probably stop suggesting programs that wipe single files or free space. Although this may possibly be better than nothing, it is likely going to leave tons of forensic traces, especially on Windows. The only way to rest easy is to do an actual total drive wipe with something like Secure Erase. I suggest using Secure Erase followed by one pass with random data from DBAN. Then you can feel very confident that none of your data will be recovered. If you delete individual files you will need to worry about all kinds of possible forensic trace evidence being left in various places around your operating system. It just isn't secure to rely on single file overwriting tools, and in some cases it is even worse than others. On Windows single file overwrite is just not secure from forensics, people have been busted in the past based entirely off of trace evidence even when incriminating files were completely overwritten.
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And if you have a SSD definitely do Secure Erase and consider throwing your drive out as well since Secure Erase doesn't actually work on all SSD.