Wiping Data Permanently from the command line

Learned this from the Tip and Tricks from Linux For You Magazine August 2010 Edition

Do be careful when you fire this command as this will destroy all your data. You should use the utilities shred

# shred -v -n 2 -z /dev/sdc

where

-v: verbose
-n: number of passes of random data
-z: finishes cleaning with one pass of zero