ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Marco F <maic23@xxxxxxx>]

You should _NOT_ use this flag when deleting files from flash storage. This is not only useless but also decreases the lifetime of the storage device! Instead you should use the solution provided by the manufacturer to delete the device. (c.f. http://security.stackexchange.com/a/5665 )

Marco

>> Just make sure to shred the data properly. If you just rm the files, they might
>> only get unlinked but still present on the flash storage.
>
> The FreeBSD rm command has vor this a flag:
>
>      -P      Overwrite regular files before deleting them.  Files are over¿
>              written three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, then 0x00,
>              and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.  Files with multi¿
>              ple links will not be overwritten nor deleted and a warning will
>              be issued.  If the -f option is specified, files with multiple
>              links will also be overwritten and deleted.  No warning will be
>              issued.
>
> What would be the best approach for this in Ubuntu?