hacked by the (alleged) `amazon-security' scammers

[Liam Proven]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 at 19:36, MR <mrzenwiz at gmail.com> wrote:

> I looked back and this is the first message that mentions DBAN on this thread.
>
> According to its website, DBAN is still free, but it has red Xs in all
> the boxes except a few, and no guarantee of erasure.

Oh dear. Maybe I am losing my mind. The new job is putting me under
pressure, and I am losing sleep.

I was _sure_ I mentioned it, but all I can find is this:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Sept 2020 at 19:01
Subject: Re: speeding up hard drive wipe
To: Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>


On Sat, 26 Sep 2020 at 13:38, Ian Bruntlett <ian.bruntlett at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I use dban (see dban.org) but - caution - that wipes all the harddrives in a computer, though.

I used to, but the free version has been discontinued by the new owners.

ABAN is a free alternative:

https://aban.derobert.net/

---------- End forwarded message ---------

A year and 2 months ago.

Oh well.

As I recall, when Blancco bought it, the free version was removed.
Maybe they've given in to popular pressure and restored a limited
version?

As to why to use it instead of `shred` or something: simplicity and ease.

You boot ABAN and it absolutely positively nukes every disk Linux can
see. No missing some by accident. No doing a partition by mistake. No
formatting the wrong drive. No concerns about encryption or anything.

It's just easier, that's all.

Me, personally, I've never needed it. I don't believe in secure
erasure; I just do it the quick and easy way. New boot sector, new
partitions, format, and done.

I've made money from doing data recovery in the past. I reckon after
I've reinstalled a new OS over the top, unless it was a big disk that
was mostly full, even someone skilled would struggle to get much back.

-- 
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