Why would you erase a disk if you could throw it away?

[nihil]

Well, why would you want to do it?


Actually much more common than you might think. A lot of computers have confidential business information, intellectual property and personal details on them. If you wish to sell or donate the machine, you need to be sure that this information is securely erased.

In the armaments industry machines on the secure network have their HDDs and RAM removed. It is wiped, crushed, pulverised then dissolved in acid or incinerated.

Is there anything left on the machine apart from on the HDD?................yes the RAM will have residual data in it which can (theoretically) be recovered.

Cheers

[dspeidel]

I think this thread is very amusing. Yes, I do understand the value of a secure delete. I am familar with the issue that arise when you do not securly delete the data. I think what comes down to is how much time and money does the party doing the recovery wish to spend?

If you have unlimited time and money then nothing is truley deleted. How many of us have unlimited time and money? I wish I did ;-)

Cheers,
-D

[CXGJarrod]

I like the idea that my porn is erased from a drive when I get done with it.

If your looking for a free (and reasonably secure solution) try Dariks boot and Nuke (http://dban.sourceforge.net/)

[hypronix]

Originally posted here by dspeidel
I think this thread is very amusing. Yes, I do understand the value of a secure delete. I am familar with the issue that arise when you do not securly delete the data. I think what comes down to is how much time and money does the party doing the recovery wish to spend?

If you have unlimited time and money then nothing is truley deleted. How many of us have unlimited time and money? I wish I did ;-)

Cheers,
-D

Well then, let's do this: you send me your HDD and I send it back to you after securely deleting whatever it has on it. After that you take it to the feds and tell'em you have evidence the hard-drive contains terrorist plans or whatever.

You don't need a lot of money to properly destroy a HDD. You can find some very powerful solvents and substances at your local farm/construction outlet, but it won't be that easy to reverse the process without large funds.

[devildell]

I like the idea that my porn is erased from a drive when I get done with it.

put your harddrive ontop of some Thermite and set it ablaze..... 3000 degrees should do the trick.........

now the stains on your keyboard, thats a diffrent story....

[detachment2702]

I've always prefered "goo off(TM)"

[hogfly]

Why wipe a drive instead of physically destroying it...

Wiping allows for re-use. Why destroy when you can re-use?
DOD or Airforce standards require an electron microscope to recover data from. Do you have one? Or the clean room to use it in?
Shadow Data recovery costs begin at around 1 million dollars. Can you afford to recover data at that cost?

The only reason to destroy a disk is when it is being decomissioned, and then it is sent to a destruction facility.

If you can afford to destroy drives and buy new ones..have at it..more power to you..but
I wouldn't worry about your data being examined by the feds..unless you are doing something incredibly stupid, and in that case, you probably deserve what you get.

[detachment2702]

I wasnt actualy doing anything illegal or whatever myself, I was just wondering why so many people that have done bad things dont destroy the evidence completely

[nihil]

They don't understand computer security.

They think that deleting a file gets rid of it, that emptying the trashcan gets rid of it, that defragmenting gets rid of it. And better still, that a lot of this privacy crapware that is touted around actually works

You may notice that it is usually small fry who get caught................the big boys can afford to hire professionals

[hogfly]

Originally posted here by detachment2702
I wasnt actualy doing anything illegal or whatever myself, I was just wondering why so many people that have done bad things dont destroy the evidence completely

Generally speaking...the people that are caught aren't aware that they are about to be caught.
Generally speaking...they don't understand..as nihil said
Generally speaking...they aren't paranoid enough
Generally speaking...they are idiots.