[ale] A little math

[Greg Freemyer]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Brian Pitts <brian at polibyte.com> wrote:
> On 02/10/2010 01:08 PM, Greg Freemyer wrote:
>>
>> NIST has a media sanitation guideline.
>
> Do you have a link to this handy?

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-88/NISTSP800-88_rev1.pdf

The relevant section is:
=========
2.3 Trends in Data Storage Media
<snip>

Advancing technology has created a situation that has altered
previously held best practices regarding magnetic disk type storage
media. Basically the change in track density and the related changes
in the storage medium have created a situation where the acts of
clearing and purging the media have converged. That is, for ATA disk
drives manufactured after 2001 (over 15 GB) clearing by overwriting
the media once is adequate to protect the media from both keyboard and
laboratory attack.
==========

And as I said I've tried to research the above statement, but it leads
to a NSA paper that I've been unable to get my hands on.  I think
someone made a FOI request for it, but it was denied.

Greg