Remove files

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Oct 10, 2007, at 00:23, David Epstein wrote:

> Does MacPorts have a version of rm that does secure removal of  
> files (that is, scribbling over the disk so that info cannot be  
> recovered)? I want this for files about my bank dealings---I'm not  
> referring to files that come from MacPorts downloads.

The Mac OS X Finder features the "Secure Erase Trash" command in the  
Finder menu. You can place your files in the Trash, select "Secure  
Erase Trash", and your files are unrecoverable. You may be able to  
trigger "Secure Erase Trash" via AppleScript, which you could call  
from the command line using "osascript" if you wanted to.

If you want something more similar to "rm" which you can use on  
individual files from the Terminal, then the "shred" utility may be  
what you're looking for. It's part of the coreutils port (which  
installs it as "gshred").

> Does MacPorts have a version of rm that (unlike Unix, but like Mac  
> Os X) is undoable?

I would suggest:

mv file ~/.Trash

> Metaquestion: how would one research this issue before writing in  
> to this list? I tried but failed.

I Googled "secure erase rm" and found a page describing the GNU shred  
utility. "port search shred" didn't show anything, so I Googled "GNU  
shred" and learned that it's part of the core-utils package. "port  
search core" showed that a port for core-utils exist.