I heard on another post something about 0-ing out computer memory not being enough to stop a digital forensics expert with enough time and dedication from recovering the data. They said you needed to overwrite the data randomly at least 7 times to render it completely irretrievable. This seems completely unnecessary to me, unless computer memory has some sort of physical “residual memory” where you could identify the last change made to that bit. And even if that is the case, why wouldn’t overwriting every bit to 0, then 1, then back to 0 work just as well?
In: Technology
The short version is that it is enough these days, and maybe it always was.
As other people have said, it’s possible that years ago a sufficiently well funded person could have taken your hard drive into a clean room with custom equipment and scan the platters so they could see how the bits used to be set.
So, you know, even back when it was theoretically possible, would have been incredibly expensive, difficult, and probably not going to be 100% even if you could do it. So, you know, maybe possibly worth it to find designs for a nuclear superweapon. Not so much to find my old emails and tax returns.
Nowadays, the resolution of the bits on the platters and the magnetic signals so weak that there’s no way it’s possible on a modern drive. Could there be some super secret technology sitting downstairs in Langley that could do it? Really doubt it.
So yeah, go ahead and overwrite it once. Nobody’s getting it back.
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