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I understand that for instance on a Windows system that when you delete a file that in fact it is not deleted as such immediately, but that the file is just marked meaning that other files can override it. This means then that some deleted files can then be recovered after their deletion.

Is there a similar system on Ubuntu? And if so is there a way to get it so that the deleted files, before their actual deletion, are encrypted or something so that if they are recovered then they cannot be read?

I am running Ubuntu 14.10.

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2 Answers 2

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You're looking for wipe. I'm not sure if there's a way to make that the default delete handler though.

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  • or scrub or sdelete or dd or .... any number of tools
    – Panther
    Feb 8, 2015 at 16:35
  • Yes, bodhi, there are many things that try to do the same thing. Feb 8, 2015 at 16:36
  • Wipe recovers data, I need something which permanently gets rid of it.
    – user364819
    Feb 8, 2015 at 16:40
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    @hbdgaf all you need is an alias on "rm" I would assume.
    – Rinzwind
    Feb 8, 2015 at 17:41
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    @hbdgaf USC "secure-delete" command "srm" and create a nautilus action for deleting
    – Rinzwind
    Feb 9, 2015 at 8:31
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This is actually a property of the filesystem, not the OS. Most filesystems don't delete the contents since it more efficient not do so. This is true for ext4 as well. Recovering file data is, therefore, possible; metadata, on the other hand, is more difficult.