/d/Tails

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Bleachbit for tails? How safe is the wipe feature?

by /u/singespite · 0 votes · 2020-10-22 06:12:00

I'm looking to delete files that are in any way able to be recoverable, can tails by default do this?

and if not, is there a way to get bleachbit for tails?

Comments (2)
/u/[deleted] · N/A votes · 22nd October, 2020 - 22:59 · Link

The wipe feature in Tails is overwriting the file so it is doing the same like bleachbit. Technically USB-Sticks and SSDs can never get 100% safely overwritten. But it should be good enough for normal users.

/u/singespite · N/A votes · 23rd October, 2020 - 09:38 · Link

what about if i'm abnormal?

/u/[deleted] · N/A votes · 23rd October, 2020 - 21:55 · Link

Then the question would be: "What means abnormal because what is normal?" ;) All these software is basically doing the same. It is overwriting the parts where the file you deleted was storaged. With HDDs thats no problem because the OS knows where the file was located, magnetically overwrites that part and is done with it. SSDs work different because they have a storage controller inside of the SSD who is responsible for allocating blocks and only he knows in which block which part of a file was really located and you are completely dependent of him. One storage block can contain many differnet parts of different files so you can not delete one specific block if you want to keep all your other files and some blocks are even kept secret to the OS by the SSDs storage controller because they are allocated for replacing bad blocks later (blocks that are damaged for whatever reason like for example a little bit of dust during production). Most SSDs today have a secure erase function that safely resets all blocks to its default factory state. But this again is dependent on the SSD storage controller and you can not control if the storage controller is really doing it or not. Especially the early SSDs were basically all broken because SSDs were a new technology. So assuming the SSDs storage controller works fine and you tell your OS to overwrite one specific file then there is a high chance that most of the file is unrecoverable "deleted" (internally re-allocated) and the storage controller does not remember anymore where it was. Even if some part of the file technically might be still there and only marked as obsolete by the storage controller because another file you want to keep is still using this specific storage block or when the storage controller did a re-allocation for that file you wanted to overwrite (then your OS is simply writing useless data in another block where the file never was located lol). To be sure about that it is gone you would need to safely reset your whole SSD whenever you deleted one file. (For some SSDs you even need a tool from the developers website that most likely wouldnt work on Tails). SSDs are a little bit black magic. And if you not even trust the storage controller then the only solution is to destroy it with fire first and then with acid. USB-Sticks can be seen as primitive SSDs so the same as above applies to them too.

/u/wpamolly · N/A votes · 17th November, 2020 - 00:34 · Link

how hard can it be to hide a usb stick?