Non-Retrievable File Deletion:
Brian Sabin, March 2007
By default, when you delete a document in Laserfiche, the associated volume files in Windows® - the image pages, text pages, and electronic document portion - are deleted using the standard Windows deletion method. When a file is deleted in Windows, the file information itself is not actually overwritten. Instead, Windows 'forgets' about the location of the file, preventing users from retrieving it and allowing other files to eventually use that space. (The Windows Recycle Bin uses this functionality to restore documents that you decide not to delete, by 'remembering' the location of the document.)
This is a sufficiently secure deletion method for most Laserfiche installations, and has certain benefits: for instance, standard Windows deletion allows administrators to use third-party file retrieval programs to restore documents that were deleted accidentally. However, if your repository must be extremely secure, or if, for compliance purposes, you need to ensure that these files cannot be recovered, Laserfiche provides a more secure means of file deletion. This method overwrites the file with random binary data before deletion. Thus, even if an administrator attempts to retrieve the file after deletion, its contents will be replaced by random data and will therefore not be retrievable.
To configure your repository to use non-retrievable file deletion, open the Laserfiche Administration Console and expand the Repository Options node. Select Settings. In the General tab, select Overwrite files before deletion. In most cases, one overwrite pass is sufficient; however, if your particular security policy requires multiple overwrite passes, you can increase the number of passes.
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Monday, September 08, 2008 
