On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Gary Thorpe wrote:

> That sounds simple and appropriate but it does not guarantee that the file's
> old data is not recoverable. As hypothesized, the system may crash before
> data is written to the disk in the overwrite phase. I am just asking if
> something like this is possible to implement and maybe suggestions on how it
> would be done?

I don't think you can. If you are going to consider the case were the
machine crashes before your overwrite hits the disk, then I think you
should consider the case where any other preventative measures are
interrupted. I belive you will then arrive at a place where you can make
NO guarantee about any method you come up with.

If you don't want the data to stay on disk, then you have to make sure
they never hit the disk. If you really don't want the data to hit disk,
then you should arrange things so they never GO to disk.

Take care,

Bill