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SMEM(1)                DragonFly General Commands Manual               SMEM(1)


NAME

       smem - secure memory wiper (secure_deletion toolkit)


SYNOPSIS

       smem [-f] [-l] [-l] [-v]


DESCRIPTION

       smem is designed to delete data which may lie still in your memory
       (RAM) in a secure manner which can not be recovered by thiefs, law
       enforcement or other threats.  Note that with the new SDRAMs, data will
       not wither away but will be kept static - it is easy to extract the
       necessary information!  The wipe algorythm is based on the paper
       "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory"
       presented at the 6th Usenix Security Symposium by Peter Gutmann, one of
       the leading civilian cryptographers.

       The secure data deletion process of smem goes like this:

       *      1 pass with 0x00

       *      5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if
              available.

       *      27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.

       *      5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if
              available.


COMMANDLINE OPTIONS

       -f     fast (and insecure mode): no /dev/urandom.

       -l     lessens the security. Only two passes are written: the first
              with 0x00 and a final random one.

       -l     -l for a second time lessons the security even more: only one
              pass with 0x00 is written.

       -v     verbose mode


BEWARE

       SLOW   Wiping the memory is very slow. You might use smem with the -ll
              option. (tip)

       BETA!  smem is still beta.


BUGS

       No bugs. There was never a bug in the secure_deletion package (in
       contrast to my other tools, whew, good luck ;-) Send me any that you
       find.  Patches are nice too :)


AUTHOR

       van Hauser / THC <vh@thc.org>


DISTRIBUTION

       The newest version of the secure_deletion package can be obtained from
       http://www.thc.org

       smem and the secure_deletion package is (C) 1997-2003 by van Hauser /
       THC (vh@thc.org)

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
       Free Software Foundation; Version 2.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
       General Public License for more details.


SEE ALSO

       srm (1), sfill (1), sswap (1)

                                                                       SMEM(1)

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