Talk:Gutmann method

Computer Security: Computing Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computer Security, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computer security on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Computer SecurityWikipedia:WikiProject Computer SecurityTemplate:WikiProject Computer SecurityComputer Security articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is supported by WikiProject Computing.

Things you can help WikiProject Computer Security with:

Article alerts will be generated shortly by AAlertBot. Please allow some days for processing. More information...

Answer question about Same-origin_policy
Review importance and quality of existing articles
Identify categories related to Computer Security
Tag related articles
Identify articles for creation (see also: Article requests)
Identify articles for improvement
Create the Project Navigation Box including lists of adopted articles, requested articles, reviewed articles, etc.
Find editors who have shown interest in this subject and ask them to take a look here.

Computing Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

NPOV Issues[edit]

Does Gutmann's paper mention any join experiment involving the FBI & NSA?

Many of the aspects of Gutmanns paper, although very interesting, are not proven in any way. I removed some of these from the article and added som hopefully NPOV criticism Zelda 16:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just adding some criticism doesn't make the Article NPOV. Could someone else look in to this - there are no sources cited that MFM (magnetic force microscopy) can't recover deleted files, could someone add them who is into this topic, thx --193.171.240.2 05:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine to criticism paranoia (And some people are clearly paranoid), but there ARE methods to recover overwritten data, one of them mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Can you provide refs for any method that can recover overwritten data? I note that no companies currently offer such a service. Having said that, this article is about the obsolete Gutmann method, and so I guess it should mention what could be done with drives around when he wrote the paper, and then maybe mentioning the fact that those methods don't work for any modern drive. Dan Beale 16:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Permittivity/Permeability[edit]

"The permittivity of a medium changes with the frequency of the magnetic field" (sic). I suspect this should be permeability, as permittivity is the analogous property for the ELECTRIC field. Pwainwright 08:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

software that uses the Gutmann method[edit]

What happened to the links to Eraser and Window Washer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.114.43.46 (talk) 20:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They did not comply with Wikipedia's external link guideline. -- intgr [talk] 22:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't IObit's Advanced Systemcare be mentioned? It is capable of using the Gutmann-method, after all. D00M1N8R (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Attribution[edit]

Who is the big quote in the Criticism section from? 198.103.96.11 (talk) 19:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Believed Slight Error In Technical Overview[edit]

I'm not an expert in this field (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but logic says that, on the third column of the second table showing an example of one process of recovering data, the previous signal should be +10, not -10, because the difference is +1. Can someone check this? Thanks, HANtwister (talk) 23:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, the table is correct, the original 'error' was -0.9, which (when amplified) is -9.0, the ideal signal is +/-10, therefore -10+1=-9, difference=+1. 123.243.231.46 (talk) 06:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"So a low frequency signal will still be detectable even after it has been overwritten hundreds of times by a high frequency signal"

Absolute bull. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.63.146 (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit to Criticism Section Reverted[edit]

A user known only as 189.25.15.219 removed a reference to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) that was critical of Gutmann's original paper. The reference was well-linked, the NBER is a reputable source (see the Wikipedia article on same), and their critical paper is topical and well-written. I'm especially suspicious, because this is the only Wikipedia edit ever recorded for 189.25.15.219. I've re-inserted the reference.

Ross Fraser (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NBER[edit]

The "NBER" info is important, and we should also make clear what NBER is and who wrote what. Syced (talk) 09:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Voodoo[edit]

Gutman said:

In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques.

The article says:

Gutmann himself has noted that more modern drives no longer use these older encoding techniques, making parts of the method irrelevant. He describes the method's common implementations "more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques."

That is a very appalling misinterpretation. Syced (talk) 09:53, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What's misinterpreted? Gutmann never intended his paper as the basis for a "method" and he's used a colourful term to describe his disapproval of the blatant security theatre that's resulted - David Gerard (talk) 10:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Citation need, suspect not credible claim[edit]

The technical overview states:

One standard way to recover data that has been overwritten on a hard drive is to capture and process the analog signal obtained from the drive's read/write head prior to this analog signal being digitized.

This needs a citation, that establishes that it is true and there needs to be some evidence and discussion of its feasibility,

It is well known, as shown in other comments here, that this a controversial claim. Without citation, it should not be allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.77.196 (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The whole technical overview section should be deleted, unless some credible references are provided to support this view. Ross Fraser (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's been more than a year since the discussion above. No one has come forward with any citation that would support the questionable assertions in this section. I'll delete this section in another week or two if there is no further comment or citations given. Ross Fraser (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I cut it just now - a year's long enough - David Gerard (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]