[ale] recovering an ext3 drive

[ChangingLINKS.com]

The IDEAL solution: 
Have a delete command that simply replaces the first character of the file 
with "#" The "#" designates that the file can be overwritten AFTER all older 
deleted files have been overwritten. This way the data is still easy to 
retrieve for the user, and the deleted data is "out of the way."

There should be a separate easy to use "shred" that makes files COMPLETELY 
unrecoverable - even by government.

FACTS:
1. Physical hard drives already work in this manner.
2. ALL filesystems INCLUDING ext3 work in a similar manner.
3. Recycle bins work in this manner.
4. Using this method does NOT use *any* more resources.
5. The creator of ext3 describes the weakness with ext3 as a "bug."

IRONY:
The strongest OPPOSITION to the system that I am proposing is Geoffrey who 
benefitted from the ability to recover data. If someone uses the undelete 
"welfare system" how can they say that it should not be *very* accessible?
(Lousy phrasing but I gotta dash to the Austin LUG meeting)

SIDE NOTES
I have found that using mv instead of rm is slow and can crash my box. For 
example, using mv with my NFS partition means that all of the data must go 
through the network (the way I have it set up). Further, my box does not know 
that this space can be overwritten when the resources are needed.

PS: I finally understand the other position. It has more to do with "culture" 
and Windows vs. Linux than it has to do with the facts. 

I am not a fan of Windows, but Windows has been using the character 
replacement method for as long as I can remember (I have never used their 
newer NTFS? filesystems), and it makes it very easy to recover lost data. We 
have the functionality for ext2, and even ext3 - but it needs to be upgraded 
and improved.

Drew


On Tuesday 21 January 2003 03:32, Joe wrote:
> Geoffrey <esoteric at 3times25.net> writes:
>
> I had this exact same argument with Drew some time ago. I later
> decided he was basically right, but at the time I didn't want to admit
> that :-) It's a cultural issue, not a technical one.
>
> > ChangingLINKS.com wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > > You imply that making a mistake is "stupidity" and that there is
> > > some great benefit for people suffering or being punished for
> > > accidents? Where does that come from? (I hear some doctor in the
> > > background claiming your parents did this to you).
> >
> > There is a gain in experiences such as this.  We all learn from our
> > mistakes, or should.
> >
> > > Darwin's rules should be given a bigger priority than they currently
> > > do. Why?
> >
> > Reference above.
>
> (Aside: this is a terrible argument. Darwin's rules are *always* in
> force *everywhere*.  We get to alter our environment in order to
> change the survival distribution, but Darwin is still running the
> show. If you supply tools that permit more organisms to survive, you
> might find some hidden fitness maxima that would not be apparent
> otherwise.  Right, this analogy has been stretched some distance past
> its breaking point now...)
>
> > > We don't need to be protected from ourselves. Why not?
> >
> > I'm the kind of person that thinks it's quite stupid to sit at a red
> > traffic light when there are no cars in sight on the road with the
> > green light.  I'm intelligent enough to make a proper decision and
> > cross the road safely.  Still, if I do, and there's a policeman behind
> > me, I'll get a ticket.
>
> I'm not quite sure what the point of that is. You're certainly free to
> break the law if you want to, but we (the society, or the OS, I guess)
> are then free to punish you. The question is, are the rules you have
> to play by easy to get along with, or not? The set of rules Windows
> imposes on the user are, for many users, easier to understand and
> follow than those imposed by Linux. Yes, that's MicroShaft's fault, in
> many ways (although Apple surely bears a significant portion of the
> blame). But those rules are not wrong, they're just different.
>
> Also, everyone *knows* the rules of the road. Everyone has to pass a
> driving test before they get into a car by themselves.  No one has to
> pass a test on using "rm" before they shoot themselves with it.
>
> Really, distros ought to have a "newbie mode" that does something
> like this (ideally with a per-user binary dir, not /bin):
>
> $ mv /bin/rm /bin/really_rm
> $ mkdir /tmp/Recycler
>
> /bin/rm:
> #!/bin/sh
> mv $* /tmp/Recycler
>
> /bin/cleanup:
> #!/bin/sh
> /bin/really_rm -rf /tmp/Recycler/*
>
> /bin/undelete:
> #!/bin/sh
> mv /tmp/Recycler/$1 .
>
> And run /bin/cleanup on every boot. That way, new users will be
> protected from the most common "rm IMPORTANT.txt" - oh shit!  kind of
> trouble. They can also clean the recycle bin manually.  They just need
> to be aware that a reboot will really kill everything they've deleted
> since the last cleanup.  Granted, this scheme isn't foolproof, nor is
> it completely analogous to the Windows recycle bin, but it would be a
> help to newbies.
>
> To do it right (that is, make it work across all applications,
> automatically recover recycle-bin space, etc.) would require
> changes to glibc.
>
> > > We sure don't need to be protected from our own stupidity.
> > > Why not?
> >
> > If we never make mistakes, we'll never learn from them.  Just like the
> > traffic signal example, there are things I'm capable of doing on my
> > own. I don't need help.  Another stupid traffic light example.  You're
> > sitting in the left turn lane with a red light.  The traffic going
> > straight in your direction has a green light.  There are no vehicles
> > in sight in the on coming lanes, yet, I must sit at the light until it
> > turns green.  How stupid is that?  What a waste of my time.
>
> Naivete is not the same thing as stupidity. A system that wants to be
> used needs to be useable by its users. If the goal is for Linux to
> become a mass-market desktop OS, then "You're stupid" is emphatically
> not going to work as a customer-support strategy.
>
> > > What is benefit of "delete" over "hide"?
> >
> > You don't waste the resources.  Besides, if you want to hide a file,
> > move it to a directory you don't look at.  Remove means remove.
> > Delete means delete.  Archive means archive.  If you want access to
> > the file at a later date, choose archive.
>
> You are absolutely correct, but users don't necessarily know it.
>
> Ideally, this would never be an issue - we'd just have infinite
> storage. Give it a few years, I guess :-)
>
> MicroShaft has captured the desktop largely because it permits naive
> users to get work done (or appears to, anyway). Leaving aside all of
> the illegal tactics M$ has used to get its products on every desktop
> in the world, Windows has a much better *appearance* of
> user-friendliness than does Linux. Linux, however, is a far superior
> technical base upon which all of the vaunted "user-friendliness" of
> MShaft products could be built. So why not do that, and rope in all
> those naive users? (See OS X for inspiration, perhaps.)
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Joe
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

-- 
Wishing you Happiness, Joy, and Laughter,
Drew Brown
http://www.ChangingLINKS.com
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