[ale] dban?? (Greg Freemyer)

[Dennis Ruzeski]

If you want to keep the drives intact but destroy the data, dban is the
bomb.

If, on the other hand, you want to make 100% sure that the drives are
completely unrecoverable, then thermite is my preferred wipe method, and
it's fun, to boot!  I'm pretty sure there's no way to recover data from a
molten puddle.

--Dennis



On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Neal Rhodes <neal at mnopltd.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> >> What's wrong with a ball-peen hammer applied to the center of the top
> >of
> >> the drive until the platter/head mechanism is permanently dished in?
> >> Then a quick toss into the garbage can.
> >>
> >> Have even the 3 letter organizations succeeded in getting data of a
> >> drive with shattered platters?
>
> (Greg Freemyer)wrote:
> >That is no where near as good as a single pass wipe.
> >
> >First, hard drive platters are metal.  They don't shatter, they bend.
> >
> >With a MFM microscope I don't think it would be a real issue at all to
> >recover data from bent platters.
> >
> >If you have $25 see
> >http://www.springerlink.com/content/408263ql11460147/
> >
> >Or the free summary at
> >
> http://sansforensics.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/
> >
> >That one paper is the only public doc I'm aware written in the 21st
> >century that addresses the issue of recovery via laboratory
> >techniques.  (ie. The Gutmann paper was from 1996 and is simply no
> >longer relevant.)
> >
> >Greg
>
> My apologies for not noting the original poster's intent to avoid
> damage.  I generally don't dispose of hard drives until they present
> failures/errors such that it's doubtful that the drive will even spin
> up, let alone last through a complete surface write.  Or ten.
>
> We could have an interesting discussion on bending platters, and whether
> the coating would bend or flake off.   Obviously the heads would be
> toast and nothing would fly over it anymore.
>
> Perhaps another perspective is how many months one would have to spend
> looking at the bent platters with a microscope to get anything useful.
> Let's face it - most of our drives are filled with linux and the
> zillions of files that go with it.  Even if there was a credit card
> number somewhere in there somewhere in some file, or a picture of you
> posing on the grassy knoll the day Kennedy was shot, do you think this
> could be found and assembled?   Do you think someone without a-priori
> knowledge that there was gold buried in there could be motivated to
> spend enough months to reassemble enough of the inode and file
> structure?
>
> Neal Rhodes
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