On Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:08:46 +0100 Thomas Bächler wrote: > Generally, running 'rm' on a file means it's gone. It's the > specification of 'rm'. Sort of, more so on SSDs but it's just harder to reconstruct because SSDs writes are spread out as sectors get worn out much quicker. For speed, /bin/rm just removes the reference in the partition table which is why it takes ages to write but a second to delete, leaving the data and allowing it to be overwritten later which could be in a second or possibly never. It is less likely to be overwritten on unix with partitions and a dedicated swap rather than on windows with a growing pagefile. The only rm command that makes the data gone that I know of is OpenBSDs rm with option -P, which overwrites 3 times.
