[ale] Linux alternative recommendation ?

[Watson, Keith]

As Jim pointed out they can but it does depend on the energy level of the xrays.

As a result the manufacturers say sometimes xrays damage flash and sometimes they don't so it is best to treat them like photographic film to be safe.

Read:

5: Pack Flash storage devices into carry-on luggage if possible
6: Avoid U.S. Postal Service radiation scanning of mailed packages

http://www.kingston.com/flash/digitalmedia_care.asp


You can get the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) Integrity in Transportation of Imaging Products (ITIP) report here:
http://www.i3a.org/resources/#itip


keith

--

Keith R. Watson                        Georgia Institute of Technology
IT Support professional Lead           College of Computing
keith.watson at cc.gatech.edu             801 Atlantic Drive NW
(404) 385-7401                         Atlanta, GA 30332-0280


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim
> Kinney
> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 23:23
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] Linux alternative recommendation ?
> 
> I haven't directly studied xray damage to flash media but xrays do cause
> damage/change to nearly every material that they encounter. By ionizing
> both valence band and deeper electron shells, the materials are forced by
> their chemistey and lattice structures to rearrange after an ionization
> occurs. Theoretically, this physio-chemical change will destroy the stored
> charge in the region of the disruption. I expect the requisite cross
> sectional absorption rate would need to be high as the data charge is not
> contained within a aungle lattice cwll but across many adjacent ones.
> However,  ionized lattice relaxtion is very much an adjacent cell process
> as the unstable charges migrate to dissapate their high potential. So I
> would count xrays as a valid way to destroy data on a thumb drive or and
> media for that matter.
>