An Evaluation Of Data Erasing Tools

Abstract

The permanent removal of data from computer disks has always been problematic. This has been due, in part, to the lack of availability of tools, and in part due to the misperception by the user that when a file is deleted it is destroyed and cannot be recovered and that when a disk is formatted, the data is destroyed. In this paper, we examine a number of the commonly available tools to determine how effectively they function and whether they achieve the aim of the effective destruction of data