Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S
In CC Cleaner, it gives you options for deleting files, from simple overwrite to Gutmann. What is the difference?
|
The difference is a non-secure deletion (the type that frees the space for future files, but doesn't actually remove any information of the file from your hard drive) and a secure method that makes sure to overwrite the contents of the data.
The Gutmann method, by Gutmann's own criticism of its usage now, is used "more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits" than it is to actually secure deleted files. My limited understanding of the method is that some types of storage media (mostly the old floppy types) can theoretically hold the data from past files even after you rewrite data over them. The Gutmann method is an algorithm that writes a series of 35 patterns that take into account the memory encoding methods to make sure that all traces of your data can not be recovered.
Nowadays, it's more voodoo than anything else. Simply making sure to rewrite over the actual data of your files is sufficient, which is probably one of the options below Gutmann.