[ale] dban??

[Greg Freemyer]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Neal Rhodes <neal at mnopltd.com> wrote:
> Geoffrey wrote:
>> Okay, so I'm cleaning up some old hardware before getting rid of it.
>> Anyone care to comment on dban or other solutions for erasing the
> hard
>> drives?  I don't want to destroy the hardware, just erase the data.
> I'm
>> not concerned with what the usual government 3 letter organizations
> can
>> do, just your average cracker out in the wild.
>
> What's wrong with a ball-peen hammer applied to the center of the top of
> the drive until the platter/head mechanism is permanently dished in?
> Then a quick toss into the garbage can.
>
> Have even the 3 letter organizations succeeded in getting data of a
> drive with shattered platters?

That is no where near as good as a single pass wipe.

First, hard drive platters are metal.  They don't shatter, they bend.

With a MFM microscope I don't think it would be a real issue at all to
recover data from bent platters.

If you have $25 see  http://www.springerlink.com/content/408263ql11460147/

Or the free summary at
http://sansforensics.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/

That one paper is the only public doc I'm aware written in the 21st
century that addresses the issue of recovery via laboratory
techniques.  (ie. The Gutmann paper was from 1996 and is simply no
longer relevant.)

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
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