Speaking to Larry's comments: 

As to CDR/DVR: even if you were to "delete" the information, it's still
present upon the media, it's just removed from the file allocation
table. So, those "deleted" files can be recovered. 

As to memory-based media (thumb drives, flash drives), it's much the
same, even if you try to overwrite. Because each memory cell has a
finite write capacity, different manufacturers have elected to simply
mark the sector of memory as deleted and to choose a new sector for
writing. So, overwriting is much more difficult, and not so easily
guaranteed. 

There are tools (sdelete, dban) for the permanent destruction of data
... but I'm not so sure that they can accommodate anything other than
spinning-platter-type hard-drives, and perhaps only in the event that
the hard-drive is controlled by the operating system rather than going
through a SAN / NAS (which have their own disk management protocols). 

Sanitizing ... is hard, basically. Much more difficult than outright
destruction of the device / media in question, at least. This explains
why there are recommendations regarding devices and travel which suggest
obtaining a new device for travel and destroying it when the travel is
complete (some of that's out of malware concerns, but some is also about
data security). 

Best, 

-David 

-------------------------

DR. DAVID T. MACKNET
 MCP, MCSD, BA, MSc, MLitt, PhD

 email: [log in to unmask]
 Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishiwerebaking/ [1]
 Blog: http://davimack.members.sonic.net/blog/ [2]
 LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacknet [3]
 Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/users/6850/david-t-macknet [4]


Links:
------
[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/wishiwerebaking/
[2] http://davimack.members.sonic.net/blog/
[3] http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacknet
[4] http://stackoverflow.com/users/6850/david-t-macknet

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]