smem

Langue: en

Version: 261383 (debian - 07/07/09)

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Section: 1 (Commandes utilisateur)

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NAME

smem - secure memory wiper (secure_deletion toolkit)

SYNOPSIS

smem [-f] [-l] [-l] [-v]

DESCRIPTION

smem is designed to delete data which may lie still in your memory (RAM) in a secure manner which can not be recovered by thiefs, law enforcement or other threats. Note that with the new SDRAMs, data will not wither away but will be kept static - it is easy to extract the necessary information! The wipe algorythm is based on the paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" presented at the 6th Usenix Security Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of the leading civilian cryptographers.

The secure data deletion process of smem goes like this:

*
1 pass with 0x00
*
5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.
*
27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.
*
5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if available.

COMMANDLINE OPTIONS

-f
fast (and insecure mode): no /dev/urandom.
-l
lessens the security. Only two passes are written: the first with 0x00 and a final random one.
-l
-l for a second time lessons the security even more: only one pass with 0x00 is written.
-v
verbose mode

BEWARE

SLOW
Wiping the memory is very slow. You might use smem with the -ll option. (tip)
BETA!
smem is still beta.

BUGS

No bugs. There was never a bug in the secure_deletion package (in contrast to my other tools, whew, good luck ;-) Send me any that you find. Patches are nice too :)

AUTHOR

van Hauser / THC <vh@thc.org>

DISTRIBUTION

The newest version of the secure_deletion package can be obtained from http://www.thc.org

smem and the secure_deletion package is (C) 1997-2003 by van Hauser / THC (vh@thc.org)

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; Version 2.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

SEE ALSO

srm (1), sfill (1), sswap (1)