GNU bug report logs - #38168
shred vs. SSD

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Egmont Koblinger <egmont <at> gmail.com>

Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2019 09:37:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Report forwarded to bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org:
bug#38168; Package coreutils. (Mon, 11 Nov 2019 09:37:02 GMT) Full text and rfc822 format available.

Acknowledgement sent to Egmont Koblinger <egmont <at> gmail.com>:
New bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org. (Mon, 11 Nov 2019 09:37:02 GMT) Full text and rfc822 format available.

Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Egmont Koblinger <egmont <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: shred vs. SSD
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2019 10:36:12 +0100
Hi,

shred's man and info pages devote several paragraphs to explain "a
very important assumption: that the file system overwrites data in
place."

However, they don't mention that the underlying storage also has to
meet this criterium. In particular, today's widely used SSD drives are
known to perform wear leveling, i.e. rearrange the blocks as they
please.

I think shred's documentation should devote a section to storage media, too.

(On a side note, the man and info pages are slightly out of sync. E.g.
the info page mentions BFS and NTFS as journaling file systems, the
man page doesn't.)

thanks a lot,
egmont




Reply sent to Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>:
You have taken responsibility. (Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:02:02 GMT) Full text and rfc822 format available.

Notification sent to Egmont Koblinger <egmont <at> gmail.com>:
bug acknowledged by developer. (Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:02:03 GMT) Full text and rfc822 format available.

Message #10 received at 38168-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Egmont Koblinger <egmont <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 38168-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#38168: shred vs. SSD
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2019 17:01:07 -0800
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Thanks for mentioning this. I installed the attached patch to fix the problems 
that you mentioned, except that I didn't add a section on storage media, data 
remanence, and data forensics (partly because a lot of this stuff is secret).

If someone would like to contribute text in that area, it would be a good thing 
to have (if only to discourage even more users from using 'shred' :-). In the 
meantime I'll take the liberty of closing the bug report.
[0001-shred-modernize-documentation.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <help-debbugs <at> gnu.org> to internal_control <at> debbugs.gnu.org. (Tue, 10 Dec 2019 12:24:05 GMT) Full text and rfc822 format available.

This bug report was last modified 4 years and 109 days ago.

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