Re: Exporting file security question

Philip:
Great explanation of how deleting is not enough. It's nice to now know 
how things work in the background.

Sharon

Philip Newton wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Massey, Robert <[email protected]> wrote:
>> You should be able to just copy the database file itself.  I do the same
>> thing.  In fact, I frequently just e-mail the Password Safe database
>> from work to home (or vice versa).
> 
> So do I. I don't even use the same version, and it works fine (as long
> as the "master" is the one with the lower version).
> 
> On 5/23/06, Sharon Roushdy <[email protected]> wrote:
>> "This operation will create an unprotected copy of ALL of the passwords
>> in the database. Deleting this copy after use is *NOT* sufficient. This
>> bypasses the security of the program."
>>
>> If deleting the copy is not sufficient, why not,
> 
> Because deleting a file does not (usually) remove the data from the
> hard drive, but merely removes the directory entry and marks the disk
> blocks as free.
> 
> So someone who directly read the hard drive block-by-block would come
> across the passwords in plain text, as long as no other file had
> happened to use those blocks in the mean time.
> 
>> and what would be sufficient?
> 
> Overwriting the disk blocks several times with random bit patterns
> information, or something like that -- there are programs that do this
> kind of thing for you, some even claiming to implement US government
> standards of wiping.
> 
> See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_wiping and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence .
> 
> Cheers,

-- 
Sharon Roushdy
Lead Instructional Designer
Office of Information Technology
Academic Support, rm. 4435
University of Maryland
College Park, MD.
[email protected]
http://www.oit.umd.edu/AS/


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