Andreas Ferber wrote:
> I don't know if any filesystem currently relocates blocks if you
> overwrite a file, but it's certainly possible and allowed (everything
> else except the filesystem itself simply must not care where the data
> actually ends up on the disk).
>
A log-structured fs will write new blocks everytime, afaik.
Ext3 with data journalling keeps copies of recently written data
in the journal. Now, if you create a "secret" file and then overwrite
it you'll still find a copy in the journal until the journal wraps
It may not wrap if the next thing you do is umount/shutdown.
A secure rm must know the fs it works with. A better solution
is to overwrite the entire partition with garbage. The only
perfect way is to destroy the magnetic surfaces though.
Helge Hafting
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 15 2002 - 21:00:53 EST