The importance of scrubbing hard disks

A couple of years ago, we were wondering how the University of Washington could be sure that we're not passing on sensitive or private data when we send computers or even just hard disks to be sold as surplus property. Josh Larios from our staff wrote a handy tool called Autoclave, which securely erases hard drives on Intel-based computers by performing multi-pass writes on all parts of the drive.

Simson Garfinkle has a new article about the kinds of data that can routinely be recovered from old hard disks and he mentions Autoclave prominently:

The best disk sanitizers come on a bootable floppy or CD-ROM. You insert the removable media into the computer to be wiped clean, boot the computer and verify your intentions to the program. It does the rest. Clearly, these programs can be dangerous in the hands of a disgruntled employee—one reason it's always a good idea to restrict physical access to your most important systems. One disk sanitizer I'm particularly fond of is called Autoclave. You can download it from staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave, write it to a floppy and go to town.

Nice to know the good work that's done here is appreciated!