File Shredder

   When you send a file to Recycle Bin in Windows, it is easy to recover this file. You can delete the file from Recycle Bin to remove it completely. Actually, when a file, even from Recycle Bin it still remains on your hard disk. Deleted files are just marked indicating that the space occupied by file is not used anymore and can be used by the operating system. There are some third party tools recovering deleted files using this infomation.
    There are some methods available to prevent recovery of your sensitive data. These methods mainly overwrite your sensitive files with predefined patterns over several times.

What wiping methods are available?

Quick Wipe: This is the fastest algorithm. It simply overwrites the all file with 0x00 byte. This makes it hard to recover data but it is still possibile to recover data by applying certain laboratory procedures.

Simple: This is also a fast algorithm. File is overwritten 3 times with this method. It is harder to recover a file deleted with simple algorithm.

Advanced Wiping: By using this algorithm file is overwritten 5 times. Recovering a file overwritten 5 times is very hard. It is possible to recover these files with only complex and expensive techniques.

DoD 5220.22M: This algorithm was introduced by the US Department of Defense. This method overwrites the file 7 times (3 times with 0x00, 3 times with 0xff and once with random characters). This is one of the most secure wiping algorithms available today.

Bruce Schneier: Bruce Schneier is another standard method for deleting files securely. It is almost impossible to recover files deleted with this method.

Peter Gutmann: This method was introduced by Peter Gutmann in 1996. This is the most secure deletion method available. This method overwrites the files taking into account the different encoding algorithms used by various hard drive manufacturers.

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