[PLUG] Erasing tapes

[Sean Whitney]

I have a bunch of DLT tapes I want to erase and give to freegeek.  I 
don't have a degausser, nor do I really want to invest in one.

I wrote this script in an attempt to do a fairly decent job of erasing 
the tapes.

I realize that with enough forensic work there is data that's 
recoverable, however since I'm not a secret gov't agency I doubt anyone 
really cares.

I'm looking for feedback on this script, things that might make it "better".

#/bin/sh

MT=`which mt`
DD=`which dd`
DEVICE="/dev/st0"
$MT -f $DEVICE rewind
$MT -f $DEVICE erase
$DD if=/dev/urandom of=$DEVICE bs=2048K
$MT -f $DEVICE compression off
$DD if=/dev/zero of=$DEVICE bs=2048K
$MT -f $DEVICE erase
$MT -f $DEVICE eject

Note: The compression off statement was needed, otherwise the server 
just went along compressing zero's and writing something to tape about 
every hour.....


Sean