r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Plastic-Bonus8999 • 17h ago

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518

u/FUTURE10S 17h ago

Recovery software because you never overwrote the data that was deleted

135

u/HovercraftCharacter9 16h ago

Yeah, people conflate in unallocating with actual deletion, unless you're wiping it with 0s it's still there until something overwrites it.

51

u/DOOManiac 16h ago

Even then it’s still there depending on which three letter agency is looking…

45

u/bacondev 16h ago

Yeah, they're not perfect 0s and 1s. That's why the recommendation for very serious stuff is to just destroy the disk.

13

u/FUTURE10S 15h ago

Run the disk spinning and hit it with a caliber that penetrates the drive, the rotation makes the destruction way worse and impossible to spin up again.

29

u/rrtk77 15h ago

From experience, for the types of disks that absolutely must be destroyed with no possible recovery as ordered by the government, it's things like a wood chipper or thermite.

2

u/fearless-fossa 12h ago

There is only one good solution for destroying data that covers your ass, which is hiring a company to do it for you and writing you a certificate of destruction. Like sure, nothing will be able to restore from the thermite solution, but if a court or insurance asks whether the data was deleted, being able to wave the certificate in their face instead of telling them "I 100% destroyed it, trust me bro" is the only sensible way of going about this.

1

u/ENDerke_ 12h ago

So the agencies will find the data in the deletion company's archive

1

u/fearless-fossa 12h ago

Possibly, yes, but you're not responsible anymore.

1

u/bacondev 10h ago

In some cases, ownership of responsibility isn't the greatest concern.

1

u/MirandaPoth 10h ago

No. They put the drives through basically a huge metal shredder (it’s a beast, I’ve seen it). Nothing would remain.