[ale] Hard Drive destruction/data distruction techniques revisited

[James P. Kinney III]

As I chuckled my way through this, it dawned on me that it is likely
possible to be able to get funding to test at least some of these. The
gubment doles out $$ to study lots of stuff that is of dubious
scientific or technical merit with an outcome that is very limited in
its scope.

At the very least a technical paper is in order. I have at least 5 hard
drives (IDE, SCSI, SATA & laptop IDE) that are candidates for
destruction.



On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 13:18 -0400, tom wrote:
> Twice that I can remember in the past few years ALE has had fun with the 
> concept of sanitizing the data held on a hard disk. Just for funsies, I 
> tried to total up the concepts proposed. I've gotten the list partially 
> togother, and thought I'd let others ensure completeness and correctness.
> 
> I've indicated a guess as to the level of security, which others who know 
> better should correct, and listed objections/drawbacks as they came to 
> mind. Nit picking fodder...
> 
> I've also guestimated at the level of satisfaction delivered, as in "This 
> isn't actually work, I'm getting some pleasure out of this." Obviously 
> highly subjective.
> 
> In no concious order other than lumping related ideas together as a class.
> 
> 1) Software
>  	- Probably not TLA secure
>  	- Probably not very satisfying
>  	- Device should be reusable
>  	- Minimal environmental impact (due to reuse)
>  	- Not applicable to mechanically dead drives
> 
> 2) "Will it Blend?" aka mechanical shredding
>  	Put the HD through a mechanical shredder/blender and reduce to
>  	shards
>  	- Probably TLA secure
>  	- Requires special equipment
>  	- No reuse possible
>  	- Probably not very satisfying, although capable of industrial
>  		scale
> 
> 3) "Vampire Treatment" or giving a disk religion by making it holey
>  	Drive spikes through HD, or drill multiple holes through HD
>  	- Probably not TLA secure - will defeat almost everybody else
>  	- No special equipment required
>  	- No reuse
>  	- ? satisfaction
>  	- May not scale to high volumes well
> 
> 4) Platter sanding
>  	Disassemble HD and sand the magnetic oxide off the platter
>  	- TLA secure
>  	- No special equipment required
>  	- No reuse
>  	- I'd call this work, no satisfaction involved
>  	- Let's not talk about scaling this to production levels
> 
> 5) Target Practice
>  	Take firearms (or any other kinetic energy impact device) and use
>  	the HD for target practice. Then shoot the debree(sp?)
>  	- Not guarenteed to be TLA secure, probably is tho
>  	- Probably needs special equipment (mostly shooting range)
>  	- No reuse
>  	- definite satisfaction potiential
>  	- limited scale, although the pleasure may scale with volume
>  	- could have environmental impact as picking up the shards may
>  		become important
> 
> 6) Chemical pickeling
>  	Soak/dissolve the platter in any of HCl, HF, H2SO2
>  	- TLA secure
>  	- There will be difficulties with disposing of hazardous materials
>  	- No reuse
>  	- Needs some special equipment, but might scale up moderately
>  	- Limited satisfaction value
> 
> 6) High field magnetic treatment
>  	- Should be TLA secure, pretty certain secure against anybodyelse
>  	- reuse might be theoretically possible
>  	- really need some special equipment
>  	- highly variable satisfaction - hanging paperclips off a freshly
>  		magnatized hd may or may not provide enough amusement to
>  		all
>  	- definitely isn't going to scale well.
> 
> 7) High tech BBQ -  thermite
>  	Expose the HD to a source of intense heat - say thermite or a
>  	cutting torch - until the mass is fused
>  	- TLA secure
>  	- Requires special equipment
>  	- No reuse
>  	- Should give fair amount of satisfaction
>  	- ?? environmental impact??
>  	- Could scale moderately well
>  	- With correct control, might give an art project - think Han Solo
>  		in carbonite. (There is a whole range of thermite
>  		reactions, the AL/rust one is the most popular due to
>  		being the hottest. There are "cooler" reactions avail)
> 
> 9) Kinetic Energy aka Rail Gun ammunition
>  	Use the HD as ammunition in a kinetic energy situation. ie. a rail
>  	gun, a trebuche launch into a rock, rocket motor into steel
>  	plate...
>  	- ? TLA security not assured
>  	- No reuse
>  	- Special equipment
>  	- Could be satisfying, could be work.
>  	- ? probably would not scale well
> 
> 
> Have I missed any ideas at all?
> 
> Somehow, I see the potiential for a technical paper - "Investigations into 
> the Secure Deletion of Hard Disk Based Data"
> 
> 
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> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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