This article is only a stub, admittedly - but it really cannot remain in its present condition, for the following reasons:
- The entire article directly contradicts a paragraph of the Data recovery article, which claims that the recovery of overwritten data, "although theoretically possible to some extent, is today little more than a myth". This MFSTM article, meanwhile, claims that, "At least 1000 overwrites for each bit is needed to render useless current MFM methods.". Who is using these "current methods"? The Data recovery article states that:
- "It should also be noted that no data recovery company today claims that it can recover overwritten information as described in the second paragraph above.".
- Some of the quantitative statements in this article are far too ambiguous. What does "twenty or more times as sensitive" mean, when comparing a hard disk head with a tunneling microscope? What are those ".95 or 1.05 minuscule discrepancies in single bit overwrite"? 0.95 of what?
- I have no idea what is meant by "An enhanced parallel process (some form of polymorphic adaptation) algorithm with a sample of physical entropy (molecular level physical randomness)".
- Most importantly: there are no citations.
Mtford 08:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
- An update: this article seems to be based on claims made in a paper by Peter Gutmann [1], which are fairly conclusively debunked here: [2]. Clearly this article needs a rewrite, though I don't know if we can assume that Gutmann's claims about data recovery by intelligence agencies are mythological, without violating NPOV. Mtford 17:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I've opted to redirect instead of deleting, per the prod tag. Though if the issues can be resolved, this seems like it could maybe potentially be a useful article. :) Luna Santin 19:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)Reply