NAME

       sdmem - secure memory wiper (secure_deletion toolkit)

SYNOPSIS

       sdmem [-f] [-l] [-l] [-v]

DESCRIPTION

       sdmem  is  designed  to  delete  data which may lie still in your memory (RAM) in a secure
       manner which can not be recovered by thieves, 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 algorithm  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 sdmem 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

NOTE

       This utility was originally called
              smem but was renamed for debian to avoid name clashes with another package.

BEWARE

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

       BETA!  sdmem 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

       sdmem 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)

                                                                                         SDMEM(1)