Talk:Shredding (data remanence)

Shred guitar - a way to sound like you can play the guitar without having any artistic talent to speak of. Here is a step by step guide:

1. Learn the most exotic scale modes. Actually fuck it - just learn the phrygian mode.

2. Write a "three-note per string lick." This is a shredder's way of saying "play parts of scales up and down with a uniform tempo."

3. Practice playing your highly original lick until your fingers bleed, you pass out due to sleep deprivation on your guitar or you can play it at around 15 notes per second.

4. Join as many music forums as you can to try and convince people around the world that "playing fast sections in a song" really helps define the style.

If you are an experienced, advanced player (you play at 17 notes per second or above) you may try adding bends to your music. Always remember the mantra:

More bends = More emotion

For more information, see the Born To Shred series of videos

Combine this article with Shredder?

Can this article be combined somehow, or merged, with shredder, the disambiguation page? Perspective 20:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of disambiguation? —Lowellian (reply) 04:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I understand what you're asking. I've added a link to that disambiguation page on this page, and also added a link on that disambiguation page to this page. —Lowellian (reply) 04:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this article really covers different topics, and overlaps with several other articles and disambig pages. Everything but the computer bit was already covered at Shredding (disambiguation), so I removed the disambig bits, and put a merge tag to be merged to file wiping. Once that happens, this name should probably be redirected to the disambig instead of pointing at file wiping, since it's more of a generic name. --Interiot 23:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Data remanence merge

 Done

See Talk:Data remanence#On the suggested merger with 'wipe' for discussion on merging File wiping, Data remanence, and Shredding. --DragonHawk 04:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I merged File wiping to Shreding; I haven't merged to Data remanance yet. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-02-26 00:26Z

At this point, this article does not contain anything which the Data remanence article does not already cover, with the exception of "how-to" style material which is inappropriate for Wikipedia (Wikipedia is not a manual). I'm considering Shredding merged to Data remanence. I've replaced it with a redirect to Shredding (disambiguation). —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 06:01, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

recoverable by "special methods"

I've removed a few references to recovering data using special hardware or software methods. I'll be happy to include stuff like this if anyone can link to a company that provides a service to restore data that has been overwritten, even if the data has been over written just once. DanBeale 12:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Some of the big data recovery houses (OnTrack, CBL, etc.) claim they can sometimes do this. I can't speak to the veracity of their claims. More significantly, I know the US Government is quite stringent in their requirements, requiring degaussing or physical destruction. So while I agree this article, in general, suffers from a lack of citations/references, I do think that your own claims are going a bit far. —DragonHawk (talk) 02:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

My point still stands. Requiring physical destruction is an easy way to prove 'data death', with no ambiguity. I'm happy for that to be left in. I should modify my comments to make it clear that I'm only talking about hard drives, and not ancient hard drives. And that I'm talking about the over-written data, and I'm not including data that's been 'swap filed' or what not. I think I've been careful to leave in anything about partially over written files still being recoverable from other parts of disk space.

But the stuff about "special hardware methods" seems to be a bit of an urban myth. I see all sorts of claims that it can be done, but never a source to a company that can actually do it. I've checked OnTrack's site, and can't find anything saying they can recover overwritten data. Indeed, they have a product which destroys data by over-writing

DataEraser enables you to easily, quickly and permanently erase data and delete all of the personal, confidential and critical data on your hard drive – and has the capability to erase to both U.S. Department of Defense and German Military/Government standards. It permanently deletes the information by actually overwriting all of the data on your hard drive - never to be recovered - so you can feel confident that sensitive information is completely eliminated.

I'm happy to restore all of it if anyone can provide me a link to a company that claims they can restore data from a drive that has been over-written. Dan Beale 07:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I mainly reverted because I wanted to get some dialog going here. I do think you have a good point.

On Wikipedia, any information which cannot be verified (attributed to a reliable source) is fair game to be deleted. By that rule, one could technically delete just about the whole article. I certainly think the "Some research ... special hardware methods" part is fair game for delete. However, I want to point out that your own remark, "There is no evidence to suggest that data over written on modern hard discs can be recovered", would also fall under that category. I'm not disputing your remark; just pointing out that, in general, this article suffers from an excess of original research.

Suggested course of action: Merge the content of Shredding into Data remanence. Turn Shredding into a redirect to Shredding (disambiguation). Make sure Data remanence is linked to from the Shredding (disambiguation) page. Then go to the newly consolidated Data remanence article, and use template tags such as {{fact}} and {{unsourced}} to highlight content which lacks attribution. If nobody steps forward in a few weeks to add some sources, delete the questionable content. —DragonHawk (talk) 11:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with that. I'll start looking for suitable reputable sources. Dan Beale 14:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel that I should point out that me saying "There is no evidence to suggest that data over written on modern hard discs can be recovered" isn't OR, it's pointing out that the statement I removed is OR. Removing that statement until someone can back it up was, I believe, reasonable. Especially given the amount of time I've spent trying to find links to anything that'll contradict my point. The rest of the article has a lot of OR, but it stays because it's probably true. Here's what most people agree on:

• Deleting a file doesn't destroy the data
• Only ways to destroy the data are over-writing (including swap space etc)or physical destruction of the disk

But after that comes the OR of

• Even if the data is over-written there's some SCIENTIFIC DEVICE that can recover data by DOING SOMETHING.

No-one ever links to a reputable source for the method, and there's no-one who claims to be able to recover data. People post links to either Gutmann - who doesn't say what people usually think he said, or to recovery companies, none of whom claim to be able to recover an over-written disk. Dan Beale 21:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually, I don't believe that is strictly proper. Something doesn't stay because it's "probably true". It's either verifiable -- attributable to a reliable source -- or it isn't. If it isn't, it fails a core criteria here at Wikipedia, and removal is fair game. Likewise, "There is no evidence to suggest that data over written on modern hard discs can be recovered" is itself a claim which needs to be verifiable. If you went and looked and couldn't find any evidence, then you haven't found anything one way or the other. Stating "There is no evidence" in the article is an "analysis or synthesis of published material", which constitutes original research on Wikipedia. If you can find a source which has already done that analysis and concluded "There is no evidence...", then that can be cited here. Again, I'm not disputing your claim. It sounds like you've put real work into researching it. But Wikipedia is not the place for such research. • For the record, I do think the remark "Some research ... special hardware methods" needs to go. That certainly fails to verify. —DragonHawk (talk) 02:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)