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'Cleaned' hard drives reveal secrets
New Scientist ^
| 14:32 16 January 03
| Will Knight
Posted on 01/16/2003 7:33:41 AM PST by vannrox
click here to read article
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To: vannrox
61
posted on
01/16/2003 9:10:03 AM PST
by
dennisw
(http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php)
To: blackdog
You're kidding, right?
62
posted on
01/16/2003 9:11:39 AM PST
by
M. Peach
(Eschew obsfucation)
To: HairOfTheDog
"My checkbook balance is on my computer. Hard for anyone to get in too much trouble with that" Lasy week I had occaission to call my bank's customer service department. They tried to point me to their online banking at their web site to find the answer to my question and I told the rep that I did not use online banking services.
When he asked why I said that I work in the web development industry and I know too much about how unsecure the Internet is to allow my financial info to even be on the same hard drive that also accesses the Internet for any reason, much less to acually allow that data to travel online if I can help it.
He asked if I made purchases online... I said, "sure. Because my credit card has guarantees in place to cover usage fraud."
Then he went on to say, "You know most of us here at the bank feel the same way!"
Interesting, huh? They KNOW it is unsecure and yet they advertise otherwise and incourage the public to participate? Why is this, I asked myself over and over that day. I really believe that security is not a priority. Rather the priority is the ability to one day access every iota of our life from a giant data base... Big Brother style, if you will. Once that is possible total control, total power will be in someone's hands. The final question is, "who's?"
To: aristeides
So what's happened to the Clinton White House's computers? I think they may have turned up in this study:
They were able to recover over 6000 credit card numbers, as well as email messages and pornographic images
64
posted on
01/16/2003 9:14:07 AM PST
by
steve-b
To: vannrox
65
posted on
01/16/2003 9:16:44 AM PST
by
dennisw
(http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php)
To: gridlock
For high security, I prefer the sledge-o-matic approach to hard drives. Hammers? Try THERMITE! Lots more fun.
66
posted on
01/16/2003 9:18:29 AM PST
by
adx
(Will produce tag lines for beer)
To: Apple Pan Dowdy
If you think about it, the earth will inevitably fall under one government who will monitor everything we do. Terrorism will enable (or give the reason for) our governments to unite for the purpose of survival. The only way to guarantee survival is to have absolute control over everything the populace does.
This requires total vigilance. Frankly, I don't think the human race will ever see that day. I believe we will self destruct before then. One or the other is inevitable - I see no other future.
Comments?
67
posted on
01/16/2003 9:22:23 AM PST
by
M. Peach
(Eschew obsfucation)
To: VeritatisSplendor
His dad does not wear shoes. One of the really odd things about simson I remember was that horses hated him. He was terrified of anything which could not be calculated. Shooting a gun, shooting an arrow, even weaving gimp keychains was fine. The thought of riding a horse which he had no method of calculating was primal fear for him. Even his movements and voice would drive a dead broke horse to become spooky.
You are right about his personal conduct. He was well liked despite his funny mannerism's. He was from a well off family but never behaved spoiled or selfishly. Kids can be brutal toward each other. For some reason Simson was given a free pass. I still remember him playing the piano and telling another kid his lines in a play while never missing a note.
I hope MIT get's their pound of flesh out of him. On a separate angle, if Simson was not from an educated family and did not have mature, patient parents, he would have been destroyed in public school, drugged, and stuck in special education classes due to his "emotional problems" It makes one wonder how many Simsons we have flushed down the toilet in the past thirty years?
68
posted on
01/16/2003 9:26:58 AM PST
by
blackdog
To: adx
Try THERMITE! Lots more fun. Well, Everything's more fun with Thermite!
69
posted on
01/16/2003 9:30:45 AM PST
by
gridlock
(Blocking the box since 1999)
To: dennisw
To clean a hard drive completely you have to write zeros to it .. This is somewhat simplistic. If you want the guy next store to be unable to read your drive, then write zeros to it, if you want the govt to be unable to read your drive then you have to do a lot more.
To: M. Peach
"One or the other is inevitable - I see no other future. Comments? " Which then leads one to seriously consider pondering whether or not one's "future" is actually in the "life after" rather than here on earth. Anyway, doing so is the only thing that keeps me sane. :)
To: M. Peach
No, I am not kidding. He was like a Harpo Marx, The guy in A Beautiful Mind, and Good Will Hunting all rolled into one. He did look like Harpo too! His family is of the Jewish faith, but sent their child to a YMCA camp. His parents were real good people with both oars in the water. They knew what was best for him. I suppose they wanted to get him a break from the Hebrew School/private school crowd he spent way too much time with during the rest of the year and get a chance to mingle with the less gifted.
One does not get to trap shoot, gallop horses, shoot rifles, rock climb, cook over a fire, and clean toilets at the B'nai Brith(sp?) summer camp.
72
posted on
01/16/2003 9:40:02 AM PST
by
blackdog
To: HoustonCurmudgeon
DOD regulation requires a pattern overwrite of at least 3 passes. The German's require 7.
To: adx
Where does one obtain thermite? I remember I had a similar substance as a little kid called bangsite. You would squeeze it from a tube like toothpaste and when impacted it would explode. (Ah the good kids toys from yesteryear)
74
posted on
01/16/2003 9:44:20 AM PST
by
blackdog
To: Liberal Classic
Reminds me of something I witnessed back in the days when an IBM AT was a very fast machine, floppies were actually floppy and Symphony spread-sheets displayed green on a black screen...
An overpriced desk jockey in our work group was having big troubles with her PC; she couldn't get it to access some vital files. The computer "guru" came and spent at least 20 to 30 minutes trying to extract her data. When he was unsuccessful he handed her the floppy. She was fuming and criticizing his incompetence as she placed the disk back into its usual storage location: on the side of her file cabinet held in place by a magnet.
75
posted on
01/16/2003 9:45:45 AM PST
by
70times7
((isn't degaussing when they remove the bandages?))
To: TheLurkerX
DOD regulation requires a pattern overwrite of at least 3 passes. The German's require 7.Vee haf vays of making it not talk!
76
posted on
01/16/2003 9:51:26 AM PST
by
70times7
(it knows nuss-sing)
To: 70times7
Back in college my wife worked at the help desk. She said that sometimes people would either fold up 5 1/4" disks, or trim them with some sissors to fit. ;)
77
posted on
01/16/2003 9:55:55 AM PST
by
Liberal Classic
(Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est.)
To: usastandsunited
Please do not worry yourself, you are way down on the list of things that bother me.... and now that I won, you're off the list entirely! ;-)
To: 70times7
I think for military drives, they also require 7-pass wipes too for the lowest security classification. At least, that's where the 7-pass standard comes from.
There are some utilities that do a 7-pass (or more) random rewrite of any deleted file space when you delete the file. Convenient for removing the info from the disk on a steady basis and not just waiting to do a multipass erase when you sell/dispose of it.
There is also encrypted virtual drives that reside in a single file on your partition. These utilities give you another drive letter but it is heavily encrpyted storage that is accessed with a strong password system. So no one gets at that data casually. You can park your web cache and sensitive documents (porno, restricting hacking, illicit passwords, etc) in such a virtual drive pretty securely.
And for the Linux folk, they can run entire filesystems that are fully encrypted start to finish. I think the BSD family is probably the best at this.
To: AntiGuv
They sure can, but not when you smash them into little pieces with a heavy duty hammer, which is what happens to all my hard-drives when I have no further use for them.I prefer to take them to the local gun range.
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