Shred

= shred =

shred is a command for destroying data. As contrast to rm, it does not remove a file, but it overwrites the content so often that you cannot recover it. shred will probably not completely destroy the data if you are using a journalled filesystem like JFS or ext3. Also, if you have a fault tolerant RAID array, it will not shred the data in the parity block / mirror drive.

Examples: $ echo "Sensitive data" > file $ cat file Sensitive data $ shred file $ ls file file $ cat file Ò´¿(j}yãÒÒÁXp|ÄþÅJ]vìâ£íÕ!¸`ÓçÚá/é²c\§øn                                       cíî®½%±0zÖTt¯É  ¤~Q£_,§Àý?ÎO|Ù{>A0æä~Ë«Á@¾p^ÈÅáÜyÌ¡èÂ$®5Í^8fµ  4ÒWc@!-5üÁ%¨çN!"R  Îo8{³FI¸*  \¨ç´  àÀTÛ^     WÑ8ÇkÇRá3¯çz\[ÔhB®ÙºÉ%lk   @°pÅ%F ¾áDcmÃïÿfG]5Ýiû² $ rm file shred /dev/sdx = Provided by =
 * shred a file
 * shred a hard disk

Most (all?) Linux distributions incorporate this from the GNU Coreutils: man page

= Related Commands =
 * cp - Copy files
 * mv - Moves files
 * rm - Removes files
 * mkdir - Creates a directory
 * dd - device-to-device copier
 * install - Copy and set permissions