Is it possible to TRULY hide a partition / data?

ok changing the file type dont do anything but if u chagne the waythe data waas stored..not accessed stored....u will get a truly un peneative thing
just what u want to use as the extra key if u introuble
we all now u can represent differnt data using just a switch

No it cannot. They have forensic specialist nowadays that are able to retrieve data from hard disks that have been wiped several dozen times and or even if the drive has been burned even..

So you say that those "secure erase Programs" are just publicity and nothing more?

What about secure erasing algorithms: Gutmann, US DoD 5220.22-M etc???

How could they recover data after a safe erase??

Could you please explain a little?

quote: No it cannot. They have forensic specialist nowadays that are able to retrieve data from hard disks that have been wiped several dozen times and or even if the drive has been burned even..

The rm command deletes only the index note (i-node) of the file but not the content of the file.
There is the gnu shred utility which pretends to safe-erase a file. http://www.gnu.org/software/fileutil...d%20invocation

There's cryptographic and steganographic file-systems
around, with kernel 2.6 you can just set-up one large file via
crypto loop. The data is then going to be as safe as your
will to resist handing out your pass-phrase.



Cheers,
Tink

You create an encrypted file system within a file on your hard drive much like an iso image. You mount it through the loop mount system. You now have an encrypted file system on top of your current file system. I don't know the full details. Check "man mount".

http://archives.linuxfromscratch.org...ry/001528.html

Originally posted by Tinkster There's cryptographic and steganographic file-systems around, with kernel 2.6 you can just set-up one large file via crypto loop. The data is then going to be as safe as your will to resist handing out your pass-phrase.

Well, have a look here:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

"Main Features:
It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk.
It can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB memory stick, floppy disk, etc.
Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:[list=1][*]Hidden volume (more information may be found here).[*]No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (TrueCrypt volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).[/list=1]
Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Blowfish (448-bit key), CAST5, Serpent (256-bit key), Triple DES, and Twofish (256-bit key). Supports cascading (e.g., AES-Twofish-Serpent).
Based on Encryption for the Masses (E4M) 2.02a, which was conceived in 1997. "

That looks more like it ... I'll definitely have a look at this.

@Tinkster...seems life is beginning to provide the need after the question ... look at this: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/65649

So you say that those "secure erase Programs" are just publicity and nothing more? What about secure erasing algorithms: Gutmann, US DoD 5220.22-M etc??? How could they recover data after a safe erase??

A secure erase (ie. writing over the disk multiple times with a data generated by a good algorithm) is probably going to defeat most software attempts to recover data. However a properly equiped lab with equipment such as an electron microscope has a good chance of recovering data from the disk platters even after rewriting over it multiple times. Most government security agencies simply destroy hard disks instead of trying to wipe them - after all its probably quicker and cheaper anyway and its certainly more reliably secure.

Also yes most 'secure erase' programs are driven more by good marketing than anything else, especially windows ones. In the Linux world the KDE people have long since taken out the 'Shred' option in Konqueror to delete files because with everyone using journaled file systems (ext3 instead of ext2) it gives a false sense of security. See also the CAUTION section in `man shred` - with open source the authors are usually more honest about their program's capabilities than a lot of the over-hyped semi-junkware in the Windows world.

Here's a stupid simple one (maybe just stupid?) that many don't think of. It won't stand up to really careful scrutiny, but it's less than obvious to the casual observer, and I don't thnk you can actually get around it unless you can umount filesystems.

Put the stuff you want to hide in some directory.
Mount a filesystem on that directory.

The contents of the directory will be hidden by the mounted filesystem, and will not show up until the filesystem is umounted. If someone goes to the trouble of checking disk space used, there will probably be a discrepancy, but it won't be real obvious where the stuff is until the covering filesystem is umounted. Granted, it's not bulletproof, but it's simple and free. Security by obscurity. Let me know if you try it. I found it by accident (SUS - stupid user syndrome).

-Alan

http://www.dfrws.org/2005/proceeding...in_journal.pdf

That might be of some use. Another possibility would be to create a backup of the disks partition table, create a partition to store your data. backup the new partition table and then restore the old one. Nobody will ever know the newest partition existed, it would appear as unpartitioned space. Then you could swap partition tables over (I think you'd also need to reboot as the kernel loads data into memory) and mount it and do whatever. I think there is even a way you could mount it without swapping the tables over if you know what cylinder it starts on etc, I've read about doing this somewhere before but I can't find the link anymore

Depends how serious you are about this, if it's just because of a nosy roommate, a cryptoloop will be more than ample to keep him/her away

Many free downloadable software for repairing partition table can re-build the partition table by just going through the indexing systems of the files so just having a bogus partition table up front isn't much a security system to me.

Well, did any of you go to the link I provided in post#22 and form your own opinion on their solution?

<edit>Btw. thanks for your link cs-cam .