SimpleSi Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 BBC NEWS | Technology | Hard drive destruction 'crucial' Can't wait for my headteachers/home users to tap into this one I always love balance in an article regards Simon
kmount Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Always the balance isn't it? These so-called experts really do a number on the rest of us.
localzuk Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Lol, that's a terrible article! I thought journalists did things like contacting a second source and getting another opinion about things? Which? is not a data disposal expert... I'll stick to DBAN.
ICT_GUY Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 File Shredder This is freeware and does a pretty damn good job. BTW, think of the average user, think of trying to get them plug an HD into another working pc and getting them to run a hd deletion utility on it. A hammer is much easier to explain and get right.
mac_shinobi Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe which im sure most of you know about 1
unixman Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Totally destroying the hard drive is the only way to be completely sure that your data isn't accessible. I think the DOD standard method is to write zeros to every sector on disk 10 times and then remove the platter and sand-blast it. One company that I worked for 10 years ago, which did work for the MOD, would remove the platter and chop it into 4 pieces with a guillotine.
grumpy_git Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 They seem to drag this one out every 6 months or so on a slow news day. Ironically, one of the SMT asked me the other day how to ensure there was nothing on his hard disk off a recently replaced computer. After explaining how you would need to run a program to fill the disk with random data etc he asked if there wasn't a quicker way, to which I replied "get a sledgehammer?". Skeptically he went through and asked the NM who gave exactly the same answer ;D.
Butters Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Totally destroying the hard drive is the only way to be completely sure that your data isn't accessible. I think the DOD standard method is to write zeros to every sector on disk 10 times and then remove the platter and sand-blast it. One company that I worked for 10 years ago, which did work for the MOD, would remove the platter and chop it into 4 pieces with a guillotine. Sounds an awful lot like they are running killdisk on it and then having some fun with the remains. To be fair though, I'd quite like to unleash the fury on a few HDD's in this office.
plexer Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Because those smithereens contain environmentally harmful materials, they should be recycled - for instance at the vendor from whom a new hard drive is purchased. Yeah I expect that the company you buy your new drive or computer from is going to want those smithereens Ben
SimpleSi Posted January 8, 2009 Author Posted January 8, 2009 Totally destroying the hard drive is the only way to be completely sure that your data isn't accessible. I think the DOD standard method is to write zeros to every sector on disk 10 times and then remove the platter and sand-blast it. One company that I worked for 10 years ago, which did work for the MOD, would remove the platter and chop it into 4 pieces with a guillotine. If I thought that MI6 was after my old drive, I might be paranoid enough to go to those lengths - but if not ... regards Simon
AngryTechnician Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 I thought journalists did things like contacting a second source and getting another opinion about things? I get the impression that most of BBC News's articles are not written by professional journalists. Next time you're reading the site, keep a check on what proportion of the articles are actually credited to someone. I tend to find it's very low. Talk about lacking credibility... What's more, have you ever tried breaking a hard drive using only a hammer? It's possibly the worst tool you could use for the task (other than perhaps Mallett's Mallet).
Geoff Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 1. Remove platters. 2. Place in microwave. 3. Cook on full power for 30s. 4. Serve on toast with a light sprinkling of herbs and spices.
localzuk Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 File Shredder This is freeware and does a pretty damn good job. BTW, think of the average user, think of trying to get them plug an HD into another working pc and getting them to run a hd deletion utility on it. A hammer is much easier to explain and get right. Why do they need another computer? DBAN is simple - run the app, create a disc, stick the disc in and boot the machine. Choose an option and voila.
Friez Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Journo's rarely double check stuff I can assure you of that! What I want to know is how they manage to recover data after a disk has been wiped a good few times, had loads of zeros written to it, and wiped again. I'm sure that all the sectors of the disk would be re-written to the zeros...
localzuk Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 Journo's rarely double check stuff I can assure you of that! What I want to know is how they manage to recover data after a disk has been wiped a good few times, had loads of zeros written to it, and wiped again. I'm sure that all the sectors of the disk would be re-written to the zeros... Peter Gutmann investigated data recovery from nominally overwritten media in the mid-1990s. He suggested magnetic force microscopy may be able to recover such data, and developed specific patterns, for specific drive technologies, designed to counter such.[2] These patterns have come to be known as the Gutmann method. [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence]Data remanence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
ICT_GUY Posted January 8, 2009 Posted January 8, 2009 The second you write over data on a hd once the data is no longer available to software recovery. The only way it can then be retrieved is with very sophisticated hardware which will scan the edges of the tracks and try to pick up data left there. (not your average ebay crook) This stuff costs a lot of money, and I would put money on the fact that the quality of what is found will not be the greatest. 2 or 3 passes and the level of difficulty increases exponentially.
RabbieBurns Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=Mzg1MjEsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
SYNACK Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 [H] Enthusiast --- www.hardocp.com That link gives me a page with all the appropriate logos and ads but no content is there a hard link page address avalible anywhere on the article?
somabc Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 (edited) Overwriting Hard Drive Data « SANS Computer Forensics, Investigation, and Response Once you have done a 1-Pass wipe the chance of getting any meaningful data back by software is nil, with Magnetic force microscopy the likelihood is so infetesimal it is not worth worrying about. In fact the odds of guessing if a bit is 0 or 1 is 50:50 so you would probably have more luck guessing the bits required in which case you can recover the data without seeing the drive! Remember a 1KB file is 1024 bits in the table below http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lPXDlv0_iG8/SWU9Lhp5uwI/AAAAAAAAChw/mOuOwW0uUDs/s1600/image4.JPG Edited March 23, 2009 by somabc
RabbieBurns Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 That link gives me a page with all the appropriate logos and ads but no content is there a hard link page address avalible anywhere on the article? Was intermittent last night, but seems OK now?
srochford Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 did anyone actually read the article? It says: While Which? recommends smashing hard drives with a hammer, experts say for most consumers that's a step too far. Criminals source old computers from internet auction sites or in rubbish tips, to find users' valuable details, and a number of recent cases have shown the dangers in disposing of second-hand equipment. A number of software solutions exist to more definitively erase files and information. - ie the BBC article clearly recognises that you don't need to physically destroy the disc, you can just use software to clear the drive completely. they do go on to show that smashing the disc does make the data unrecoverable (it does!) but they don't claim that you need to do that.
Butuz Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 All our hard drives are chopped into 3mm square cubes along with the rest of the PC! Butuz
tonyd Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Another method for quickly, and safely destroying the disk is to simply drill through the platters, a couple of holes and job done. But much simpler to use disk erasing software, though maybe not as quick.
Maz Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Pfft, you lot are looking too far into it. They make great coasters!
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