NAME
sdmem - secure memory wiper (secure_deletion toolkit)
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
sdmem 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 :)
AUTHOR
van Hauser / THC <vh@thc.org>
DISTRIBUTION
The newest version of the secure_deletion package can be obtained from
http://www.thc.org
sdmem and the secure_deletion package is (C) 1997-2003 by van Hauser /
THC (vh@thc.org)
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.
SEE ALSO
srm (1), sfill (1), sswap (1)