Talk:Gutmann method

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Does Gutmann's paper mention any join experiment involving the FBI & NSA?

Many of the aspects of Gutmanns paper, although very interesting, are not proven in any way. I removed some of these from the article and added som hopefully NPOV criticism Zelda 16:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Just adding some criticism doesn't make the Article NPOV. Could someone else look in to this - there are no sources cited that MFM (magnetic force microscopy) can't recover deleted files, could someone add them who is into this topic, thx --193.171.240.2 05:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's fine to criticism paranoia (And some people are clearly paranoid), but there ARE methods to recover overwritten data, one of them mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Can you provide refs for any method that can recover overwritten data? I note that no companies currently offer such a service. Having said that, this article is about the obsolete Gutmann method, and so I guess it should mention what could be done with drives around when he wrote the paper, and then maybe mentioning the fact that those methods don't work for any modern drive. Dan Beale 16:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

"The permittivity of a medium changes with the frequency of the magnetic field" (sic). I suspect this should be permeability, as permittivity is the analogous property for the ELECTRIC field. Pwainwright 08:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

What happened to the links to Eraser and Window Washer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.114.43.46 (talk) 20:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

They did not comply with Wikipedia's external link guideline. -- intgr [talk] 22:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't IObit's Advanced Systemcare be mentioned? It is capable of using the Gutmann-method, after all. D00M1N8R (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Who is the big quote in the Criticism section from? 198.103.96.11 (talk) 19:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm not an expert in this field (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but logic says that, on the third column of the second table showing an example of one process of recovering data, the previous signal should be +10, not -10, because the difference is +1. Can someone check this? Thanks, HANtwister (talk) 23:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

No, the table is correct, the original 'error' was -0.9, which (when amplified) is -9.0, the ideal signal is +/-10, therefore -10+1=-9, difference=+1. 123.243.231.46 (talk) 06:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

"So a low frequency signal will still be detectable even after it has been overwritten hundreds of times by a high frequency signal"

Absolute bull. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.63.146 (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

A user known only as 189.25.15.219 removed a reference to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) that was critical of Gutmann's original paper. The reference was well-linked, the NBER is a reputable source (see the Wikipedia article on same), and their critical paper is topical and well-written. I'm especially suspicious, because this is the only Wikipedia edit ever recorded for 189.25.15.219. I've re-inserted the reference.

Ross Fraser (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

The "NBER" info is important, and we should also make clear what NBER is and who wrote what. Syced (talk) 09:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Gutman said:

• In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques.

The article says:

• Gutmann himself has noted that more modern drives no longer use these older encoding techniques, making parts of the method irrelevant. He describes the method's common implementations "more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques."

That is a very appalling misinterpretation. Syced (talk) 09:53, 2 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

What's misinterpreted? Gutmann never intended his paper as the basis for a "method" and he's used a colourful term to describe his disapproval of the blatant security theatre that's resulted - David Gerard (talk) 10:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

The technical overview states:

One standard way to recover data that has been overwritten on a hard drive is to capture and process the analog signal obtained from the drive's read/write head prior to this analog signal being digitized.

This needs a citation, that establishes that it is true and there needs to be some evidence and discussion of its feasibility,

It is well known, as shown in other comments here, that this a controversial claim. Without citation, it should not be allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.77.196 (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. The whole technical overview section should be deleted, unless some credible references are provided to support this view. Ross Fraser (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

It's been more than a year since the discussion above. No one has come forward with any citation that would support the questionable assertions in this section. I'll delete this section in another week or two if there is no further comment or citations given. Ross Fraser (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

I cut it just now - a year's long enough - David Gerard (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

The last paragraph of the criticisms section previously contained content which violated Wikipedia's NPOV policy (editorializing, and stating facts as opinions). I tried to fix these problems but I'm not sure I did I good job (I'm a new editor). I tried to rewrite it as opinions, but the claims made were unsourced, so I added a by whom tag. (Also I know there's already a topic on NPOV issues but that one was specific to claims made in Gutmann's paper, not responses to his paper). This Video Has 73M Views (talk) 23:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)Reply