[clug] Secure Erase of disks/drives

[Adam Thomas]

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 12:56:58PM +1000, Alex Satrapa wrote:
> Hmm... I wonder if I really meant /dev/urandom? I think urandom  
> resorts to pseudo-random numbers after the entropy pool is exhausted,  
> where /dev/random gives you random numbers only while there are bits  
> left in the entropy pool.
> 
> Or... just cat an MPEG movie to the disk?  Compressed junk is  
> probably "random" enough unless someone knows exactly which movie  
> file you used, and then uses that to guide their interpretation of  
> the output from the scanning magnetic force microscope...

I've been meaning to hook up a webcam and run video_entropyd[1] for a
disk scrubbing machine. I just don't have anywhere in my office that
has enough activity to generate decent entropy. 

The same guy has also writen an audio_entropyd and has links to other
code/devices which aid in entropy gathering.

Adam

[1] http://www.vanheusden.com/ved/