Skeletons on your hard drive

Discussion in 'other security issues & news' started by ronjor, Apr 20, 2005.

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  1. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    Story
     
  2. nadirah

    nadirah Registered Member

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    EXCELLENT article!!! I'm looking for a good program to destroy my old computer's HDD, since I'm not using it anymore.
     
  3. bigbuck

    bigbuck Registered Member

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    Try a bit of 80 grit sandpaper nadirah.....that should do the trick! :D Wouldn't want anyone to get hold of all your finacial records!
     
  4. bluebird

    bluebird Guest

    "John Frey, an environmental strategies and solutions manager at PC giant Hewlett-Packard, pointed out that when drives were easily wiped during the DOS era, people saw it as a liability rather than a benefit. Frey said hardware and software makers have made data hard to eradicate because customers have demanded that they do so."

    "Customers" that "demand" = Pentagon + FBI
     
  5. anywho

    anywho Guest


    One of the best programs for erasing a hard drive is DBAN found here (for free) http://dban.sourceforge.net

    But keep in mind that even Peter Gutmann himself stated in the added 'Epilogue' of his paper - 'Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory' that the 35 pass overwrite technique (or anything greater) is really a complete waste of time. For any modern drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html DBAN will easily accomplish this for you and it's completely free.

    The only way somone 'might' be able to recover your data after a few random passes is through very costly and time consuming techniques like microscopic magnetic recovery. Someone would have to feel your pretty important to go through all that trouble. But if your that paranoid, completely destroy the drive. Here's one posters idea on how to go about it.

    1. Don EPA level III BioHazard suits before opening computer.

    2. After removal of hard drive, deter further use of toxic part through liberal applications of pressure and heat. A hammer, followed by a Viking funeral ritual is suggested. A scale model of a Viking Longboat is not necessary; nail the drive to a two-by-four, drench it with gasoline combined with Tide and a little Gladwrap, then light it and use a trebuchet to catapult it over the nearest English castle wall. ;) :D
     
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