Secure Empty Trash missing on El Capitan

I agree. If you have a few files on your computer that you'd rather have unrecoverable if you decide to sell it, then having a "secure empty trash" sure comes in handy, so you don't have to spend 6 hours wiping your whole drive 7 times.

Well, you are required to erase your entire drive anyway - the licensing agreement requires you to remove any OS or app downloaded from the app store because the license is not transferable and tied to the Apple ID used to obtain it. If you do not, the buyer will have problems trying to download updates, reinstall, or purchase anything at the app store.

And, there is no need to wipe it 7 times; three is secure enough.

travelermanu wrote:

I agree. If you have a few files on your computer that you'd rather have unrecoverable if you decide to sell it, then having a "secure empty trash" sure comes in handy, so you don't have to spend 6 hours wiping your whole drive 7 times.

Use FileVault, then when you repartition the disk and install the clean OS X, you will have destroyed the old decryption key and now all the unused blocks are random bits. No need to erase anything. And besides your 7 pass erase may still not get every last bit of sensitive data. Secure erase was most likely removed because it is NOT Secure.

The rotating disk drives and solid state storage manufactures (hint, they are not Apple) can and do retire blocks which can have your data on it, and it is not longer accessible by normal means.

And the operating system does move data around without erasing the previous allocation (either because you copied/moved the file, or because the operating system was defragmenting some file or optimizing load times by putting files in optimum locations on disk). So by the time you get around to deleting your few files, there may be parts of those files sitting in random blocks all throughout your storage. So thinking about security "AFTER" the fact is not going to keep your sensitive files secure.

Use FileVault and be secure from the start.

This Apple Support page gives directions for securely emptying trash on El Capitan. However, the feature is missing:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21751?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Apple has taken this webpage down. Interesting.

So using File Vault does not exactly give you secure delete functionality

That sounds great, except that many here, (including many level 10s) strongly recommended NOT using FileVault.

I have read many reports right here about people using FileVault having there hard drives crash, or otherwise not being able to use their data.

Well, you are required to erase your entire drive anyway - the licensing agreement requires you to remove any OS or app downloaded from the app store because the license is not transferable and tied to the Apple ID

Life was so much easier when software was sold on disk. The selling process is such a pain these days I simply destroy my hard drive and throw the whole (working perfectly) computer in a landfill. 🙂

Ziatron wrote:

So using File Vault does not exactly give you secure delete functionality

That sounds great, except that many here, (including many level 10s) strongly recommended NOT using FileVault.```

There were issues with the first iteration of File Vault. However, I think most people here do recommend it now. Who doesn't?

There were issues with the first iteration of File Vault. However, I think most people here do recommend it now. Who doesn't?

You may be right. A lot of the negative comments go back to around 2010 and 2011.

I'm just confused about the whole process a little bit.

What's the point of encrypting applications? Why not just encrypt your home folder? I'm trying to figure out how much File Vault 2 will slow my 2010 Mac Pro. 1TB SSD. About 300GB free.

Read http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/105320/does-filevault-encryption-slow-r ead-write-access-on-an-ssd

My experience with File Vault 2 on a mid-2010 MacBook with a SSD and 4GB Ram running El Capitan is that there is no slowdown detectable. Simply no slowdown. I am amazed by that, but that is what it is.

What's the point of encrypting applications? Why not just encrypt your home folder?

Ziatron wrote:

What's the point of encrypting applications? Why not just encrypt your home folder?

They tried that with FileVault version 1. It was a disaster.

FileVault version 2, whole disk encryption, has been a much more reliable product.

Also, applications often times write scratch data outside your home folder, so your sensitive data could be written to disk UNENCRYPTED in a scratch file and now your data is out there for anyone that gets access to your disk to read. Whole disk encryption does not have that problem, as all files are encrypted.

Encryption and decryption of files is not that much overhead. And the intel i5, i7, xeon processors all include hardware support for the encrypt/decrypt so it is very unlikely you are going to notice any slow down.

If you have sensitive data, then you want it to always be encrypted, and whole disk encryption is the best solution. If you do not think you have sensitive data, then don't encrypt, however, most people have enough personal information on their computers to allow a thief to steal their identity.

Also when selling a Mac, all you need to do is reformat the disk and install a clean OS X. The act of reformatting will destroy the encryption keys, and now all your data is just a random bunch of bits, so no need to waste time erasing the disk, and for SSD, shortening the life of the SSD by needless writes.

Thanks, Bob! Your input on this topic is really appreciated.

FileVault version 2, whole disk encryption, has been a much more reliable product.

OK, this is starting to make sense to me now.

And the intel i5, i7, xeon processors all include hardware support for the encrypt/decrypt so it is very unlikely you are going to notice any slow down.

I have a Mid 2010 Mac Pro, (Quad-Core Intel Xeon) so perhaps encryption would not be well-suited for me?

I don't know about your Mac Pro, but I activated Filevault (the latest version on El Capitan) on my old backup laptop -- a mid-2010 Macbook. It worked just fine... totally transparent.