Wiping files
File wiping means that you remove a file in a way that
it cannot be restored. If you just delete a file it can be
very easily restored with special software, after some time
the task becomes more harder but it can still be done by a
professional using special hardware.
Now, this can be a problem if you have some very sensitive
data on your computer, for example credit card information.
jv16 PowerTools offers a very good solution to this problem.
You can wipe your sensitive files with it very easily, just
start the file tool, drag the files you want to wipe to it,
select them and click Wipe under the More functions button.
Technical details
The file wiping procedure in jv16 PowerTools works by overwriting
the data many times.
First the file is written over with plain zeroes, then with
ones. This is done three times. After that the file is written
over with totally random data for ten times. The random data
is generated by cryptographically safe pseudo random number
generator (PRNG). And, of course, the file buffers are flushed
after each write.
And by the way, if you wipe files yet still tell the program
to backup them first the program remembers that the files
were wiped. So if you later decide to remove also the backups
with the backup tool it knows automatically to wipe also the
backup files.
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