[ale] destroy old drives

[DJ-Pfulio]

Or just use strong encryption on the data to begin with (non-trivial passphrases
or better, keys to unlock), then remove the headers.

And if you like, run ddrescue --force /dev/urandom /dev/sdZZZZZZZZZ for a few
hours or until it is full.

Using LUKS means never worrying about sending drives in for warranty replacement.

But shooting them is fun too.

If you are a large enterprise or DoD, what we think doesn't matter. They will
have policies.

For a medium-small biz or home outside DoD entanglements, the above works better
than what 99.9999% of your competition is doing.


On 4/10/19 8:30 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> I think opinions vary on the effectiveness of DBAN, but nobody I've
> ever met disputed that once all platters are reduced to pieces no more
> than 1 inch square, the cost of recovery precludes anyone but a state
> actor who has prioritized the daylights out of your data. To easily
> be even more cautious, you could easily dispose of platter shards in
> different places and different time periods.
> 
> DBAN and its category brethren strike me as things that work
> wonderfully if used correctly, but I make mistakes. And what if the
> drive was intermittent when DBANized?
> 
> And what if you accidentally DBANize the wrong drive?
> 
> And then there's this: What's the advantage of DBAN over a hammer?
> 
> SteveT
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 15:18:55 -0400
> Pete Hardie <pete.hardie at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> But for working drives, does that substantially differ from running
>> DBAN?
>>
>> Non-working drives do require a hammer
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 15:05 Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>>
>>> As a corollary, how much would it damage your life if somebody
>>> recovered your username, password, and positions for your investment
>>> firm?
>>>
>>> Fifteen minutes of hammering and you haven't a care in the world.
>>>
>>> SteveT
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2019 15:27:35 -0400
>>> Pete Hardie via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>>>  
>>>> How much effort do you expect the men in black to expend to
>>>> recover the data on them?
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 14:48 Geoffrey Myers via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>  
>>>>> So, I’m cleaning up the basement.  Got a stack of old drivers
>>>>> I’m working to erase.  Many of which are, not surprisingly
>>>>> inaccessible.  Google says simply remove the platters and hammer
>>>>> them into shards.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts?