(The presence of this sync(2) call is somewhat suspect, given that the
call guarantees almost nothing in today's virtual memory implementations,
but it is left in for other OS's that do support it.)
by request on regional-fr.
Srm is a secure replacement for rm(1). Unlike the standard rm, it overwrites
the data in the target files before unlinkg them. This prevents command-line
recovery of the data by examining the raw block device. It may also help
frustrate physical examination of the disk, although it's unlikely that
completely protects against this type of recovery.
Srm uses algorithms found in _Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and
Solid-State Memory_ by Peter Gutmann and THC Secure Delete (the overwrite,
truncate, rename, unlink sequence).
All users, but especially Linux users, should be aware that srm will only
work on file systems that overwrite blocks in place. In particular, it will
_NOT_ work on resiserfs or the vast majority of journaled file systems. It
should work on ext2, FAT-based file systems, and the BSD native file system.
Ext3 users should be especially careful as it can be set to journal data as
well, which is an obvious route to reconstructing information.
