The shred command and security?

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:42:24 -0600
Bruno Wolff III <bruno at wolff.to> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 05, 2007 at 10:58:09 +0000,
>   Mike C <mike.cloaked at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In the event that you want to give a Fedora machine to a friend but want to
> > remove sensitive files first, an obvious tool is the shred command.
> 
> An easy way to do this is to boot with a livecd and the copy /dev/zero to
> the raw disk devices (or use a destructive write test with badblocks). Once
> that is complete do a fresh install.

If you are going to blank the media use the security erase command to the
drive. That is what it is there for.