SMEM(1)SMEM(1)NAMEsmem - secure memory wiper (secure_deletion toolkit)
SYNOPSISsmem [-f] [-l] [-l] [-v]
DESCRIPTIONsmem 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" pre‐
sented 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 avail‐
able.
* 27 passes with special values defined by Peter Gutmann.
* 5 random passes. /dev/urandom is used for a secure RNG if avail‐
able.
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 con‐
trast 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 MER‐
CHANTABILITY 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)