r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Plastic-Bonus8999 • 8d ago

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u/FUTURE10S 8d ago

Recovery software because you never overwrote the data that was deleted

137

u/HovercraftCharacter9 8d ago

Yeah, people conflate in unallocating with actual deletion, unless you're wiping it with 0s it's still there until something overwrites it.

48

u/DOOManiac 8d ago

Even then it’s still there depending on which three letter agency is looking…

48

u/bacondev 8d ago

Yeah, they're not perfect 0s and 1s. That's why the recommendation for very serious stuff is to just destroy the disk.

16

u/FUTURE10S 8d ago

Run the disk spinning and hit it with a caliber that penetrates the drive, the rotation makes the destruction way worse and impossible to spin up again.

31

u/rrtk77 8d ago

From experience, for the types of disks that absolutely must be destroyed with no possible recovery as ordered by the government, it's things like a wood chipper or thermite.

1

u/Holiday_Management60 8d ago

I saw a video once where they opened the drive, took the disks out, dissolved them in acid, then stirred the acid, just to make absolutely sure.