Destroying Hard Drives

"kony" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

"kony" wrote about the Department of Defense:
That they have a procedure for destruction of drives is no
evidence that they (or anyone else) can recover data from
properly wiped drives.

Like anything else, this is your tax money at work.
[..........]
Bottom line- you have zero evidence that it's possible.
[..........]
There is no reason to believe the data can be recovered.


Organizations secure against what they know is possible
or conceivable. If that is considered a waste of resources
by you, security for you *is* a waste of resources.


So you're an adovcate of tin-foil hats too I suppose.

It's "conceivable" that if someone wanted your data THAT
badly, they'd simply kill you on the way to the destruction
facility, so among your suggestions (and a tin-foil hat),
don't forget to mention armed guards, armored car, etc.


Armed guards and armored cars and armed escorts to
secret disposal sites *are* part of standard daily destruction
precautions in certain areas of the defense industry and
federal agencies. That's why your disbelief is so pathetic.

*Your* data, on the otherhand, wouldn't deserve such
protection.

*TimDaniels*

Basically, you're saying that because Nixon's analog
recording gaps haven't been recovered is reason to
believe that physical destruction of digital recording
media is a waste. Tell it to the DoD and other agencies
with the resources and experience to think otherwise.

*TimDaniels*

"w_tom" wrote and wrote and wrote:
The loss of one digital bit is a major loss of the entire
data packet. Loss of a number of bits cannot be recovered
using error correction techniques. But an audio recording
routinely has lost 'data bits'. Its called noise. Even with
all that lost data (noise), the analog recording is still
quite easily understood. Analog data stored magnetically on
Nixon's tapes still cannot be restored. Then digital data -
without all the redundancy found in analog stored data - is
even harder to recover.

Tim - you should know this. Analog recordings are so much
easier to recover for so many reasons - including so much of
the data is redundant. And still Nixon's (alleged) single
erasures of that tape have not been recovered. Why do you
think digital data can be recovered easier - and with less
cost - and with less advanced equipment? Meanwhile you have
also assumed one knows exactly which disk to try to recover
data from - to spend those $millions.

Above alone makes it all but impossible to recover the
data. Then we make it even more difficult to recover that
digital data. We overwrite that data multiple times.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
Why should analog signals be easier to separate from
other analog signals and noise than digital signals are?
Digital pulses are easier to selectively filter for a given
pulse strength and pulse phase. They can be identified
even on an oscilloscope. Pulse "slop" into inter-track
regions can also be quite different from background
noise to make their extraction easier.

Suffice it to say that the DOD does not depend on
overwrites to assure destruction of classified information.
It requires physical destruction at an official destruction
station for that because it is forced to assume, given its
own capabilities, that overwrites are not guarantees of
non-recoverability. Go argue with them about their
precautions being merely due to paranoia.

"w_tom" wrote;
Tim - you should know this. Analog recordings are so much
easier to recover for so many reasons - including so much of
the data is redundant.


Tell it to NASA, which uses digital signals to communicate
with its space probes. Tell NASA "Guys, you're so stupid.
You should be using analog signals which are redundant
and retain their information despite noise so much better
than digital signals." They're waiting to hear from you -
right now.

*TimDaniels*.

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:25:01 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:


So you're an adovcate of tin-foil hats too I suppose.

It's "conceivable" that if someone wanted your data THAT
badly, they'd simply kill you on the way to the destruction
facility, so among your suggestions (and a tin-foil hat),
don't forget to mention armed guards, armored car, etc.


Armed guards and armored cars and armed escorts to
secret disposal sites *are* part of standard daily destruction
precautions in certain areas of the defense industry and
federal agencies. That's why your disbelief is so pathetic.


No it's why your paranoia is so complete, because you are
ignorant of basic facts and so you merely try to mimmic
others.


*Your* data, on the otherhand, wouldn't deserve such
protection.


Pretending you know something based on some illusion about
an idealistic future where *anything is possible*, is just a
silly kid's game. In the real world, the data cannot be
recovered and none of your ideals about "security" change
this basic fact.

I'm content to leave you jumping through hoops to go
overboard when you cant' understand this. Until you find
even ONE single example of the data being recovered from the
DOD spec'd and trialed wipes you cannot conclude in any
rational way that physical destruction of the platters
themselves is necessary.

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:31:51 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

Basically, you're saying that because Nixon's analog
recording gaps haven't been recovered is reason to
believe that physical destruction of digital recording
media is a waste. Tell it to the DoD and other agencies
with the resources and experience to think otherwise.


Actually they already clearly made their specs for this very
purpose, you apparently don't even understand the most very
basic principles of specs at all.

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 19:43:05 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

"w_tom" wrote;
Tim - you should know this. Analog recordings are so much
easier to recover for so many reasons - including so much of
the data is redundant.


Tell it to NASA, which uses digital signals to communicate
with its space probes. Tell NASA "Guys, you're so stupid.
You should be using analog signals which are redundant
and retain their information despite noise so much better
than digital signals." They're waiting to hear from you -
right now.


WTH does that have to do with magnetic storage recovery
efforts? Nothing.

If NASA's comm was interrupted they'd simply resend. It's
not a one-shot event like a singular file storage.

Apparently, Tim, you have not worked with PCM nor with
Tempest. Your specualtions are not tempered with experience.
More than sufficient security is obtained from a single disk
overwrite. Multiple overwrites would make that data, for all
practical purposes, unrecoverable. As Kony notes, if they
want it that bad as to spend $millions trying to recover the
data, then they are going to kill you if necessary to steal
it. Murder and theft would be easier and cheaper than trying
to recover overwritten disk data.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
"w_tom" wrote;
Tim - you should know this. Analog recordings are so much
easier to recover for so many reasons - including so much of
the data is redundant.

Tell it to NASA, which uses digital signals to communicate
with its space probes. Tell NASA "Guys, you're so stupid.
You should be using analog signals which are redundant
and retain their information despite noise so much better
than digital signals." They're waiting to hear from you -
right now.

*TimDaniels*.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
"w_tom" wrote;

Tim - you should know this. Analog recordings are so much
easier to recover for so many reasons - including so much of
the data is redundant.



Tell it to NASA, which uses digital signals to communicate
with its space probes. Tell NASA "Guys, you're so stupid.
You should be using analog signals which are redundant
and retain their information despite noise so much better
than digital signals." They're waiting to hear from you -
right now.


NASA, and the DOD use digital signals for many reasons, none of which
have *anything* to do with data recovery from an erased recording
medium! Read an elementary treatise on DSP, to find out about some of
these reasons.

Many more security violations are caused by humans than by any
mechanical or electronic deficiencies. Maybe tin hats are in order! ;-)

--
Virg Wall