How is OS X Disk Utility's secure erase mode in comparison to other commerical secure delete methods/apps?
Within OS X, the utility Disk Utility has a secure erase for hard drive formatting. It has 1,7, and 33 pass options, which to my knowledge are very good writting random data to the drive. What does os x not do that other commercial products do? What makes more advanced software a much better secure erase solution?
Solution 1:
Nothing. A single-pass wipe is effectively secure.
(Don't believe it? Contact a reputable data-recovery firm and price a recovery from a true single-pass surface wipe. If you have data that someone -- anyone! -- would realistically be willing to pay the quoted price to recover, consider something more rigorous, like maybe a three-pass wipe.)
Solution 2:
A single erase pass is enough on modern GMR drives. The 395 pass DOD-top-secret-super-duper-mega-security stuff is partly from a requirement of ancient MFM drives with poor head tracking, but is mostly marketing spin.
An interesting read on the topic; http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/
Solution 3:
The nicer you can make that polished turd look, the more people will spend on it. :)
All wipe algorithms are essentially the same. You may get some fancy random ones, but they all accomplish the same goal. I personally use DBAN, but writing zeros to a disk is writing zeros to a disk no matter how you look at it.
Solution 4:
OS X does use DOD wipe, but they are not big on giving any kind of legal protection with it. It is free and the support and backing of it represent that. So yes it works and using it would provide enough legal protection. That said, there are other tools out there if you are looking into being profoundly thorough.
As for other products, DBAN, EBAN, White Canyon, etc. I typically remove the hard disk from the Mac and kill the data on a guinea pig PC. With that I have many more options for testing hard disks and wiping the data.
Single pass myths, are myths. After I used a magnetic force microscope, it is clear even the new drives show their old tracks.
http://www.safedatadestruction.com/Safe_Data_Destruction/Validation.html
A 3-layer wipe will cover you legally, a single pass will not.