SYNOPSIS
sdmem [-f] [-l] [-l] [-v]
DESCRIPTION
sdmem is designed to delete data which may lie still in your memory (RAM) in a secure manner which can not be recovered by thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. Note that with the new SDRAMs, data will not wither away but will be kept static - it is easy to extract the necessary information! The wipe algorythm is based on the paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of the leading civilian cryptographers.The secure data deletion process of sdmem goes like this:
- *
- 1 pass with 0x00
- *
- 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.
- *
- 27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.
- *
- 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.
COMMANDLINE OPTIONS
- -f
- fast (and insecure mode): no /dev/urandom.
- -l
- lessens the security. Only two passes are written: the first with 0x00 and a final random one.
- -l
- -l for a second time lessons the security even more: only one pass with 0x00 is written.
- -v
- verbose mode
NOTE
- This utility was originally called
-
smem
but was renamed for debian to avoid name clashes with another package.
BEWARE
- SLOW
- Wiping the memory is very slow. You might use sdmem with the -ll option. (tip)
- BETA!
-
sdmem
is still beta.
BUGS
No bugs. There was never a bug in the secure_deletion package (in contrast to my other tools, whew, good luck ;-) Send me any that you find. Patches are nice too :)
DISTRIBUTION
The newest version of the secure_deletion package can be obtained from http://www.thc.orgsdmem and the secure_deletion package is (C) 1997-2003 by van Hauser / THC ([email protected])
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; Version 2.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.