secure data erasing

Fri Dec 9 06:28:43 PST 2005

It sounds like re-using the drives is not the objective.

Frankly, I gave a couple of drives to a very trusted employee.  He
took them to a target range an shot them with a high-powered rifle. 
Not a handgun - not enough to go through...  A rifle went through - a
few holes will give a good challenge to recovery.

If that isn't enough:  dd first, de-gauss, then shoot - that should
guarantee it can't ever be read again.

-hej

On 12/8/05, Wing Wong <wingedpower at gmail.com> wrote:
> Huh.. original got munged:
>
> http://www.spectrumwest.com/Attach2.htm
>
> Degaussing risks not only wiping the track data, but also damaging the
> perm magnets as well as the servo coils themselves. All of this risks
> rendering the hard drive unusable. If the purpose is to reuse the hard
> drives(as data devices), then degaussing is a bad idea.
>
> As others have noted, the hammer approach would do limited damage to
> the actual platters. The disk won't be usable afterwards, but the data
> can still be recovered, etc.
>
> Btw, has the decision maker decided where this degausser would operate
> so that it won't damage/affect devices not slated for
> wiping/destruction?
>
> Wing.
>
> > On 12/7/05, Alvin Oga <alvin at mail.linux-consulting.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > hi ya jim
> > >
> > > On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Jim Kavitsky wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi, Alvin. Are you going to be retaining possession of the disks, or do
> > > > they have to go off site? I'm also curious as to why software erasure is
> > > > not an option.
> > >
> > > not my choice ( yet )
> > >
> > > they want degaussing for whatever reason ... :-)
> > >
> > > > Is it a matter of being too labor intensive for the
> > > > number of devices that you have? The DoD has published data erasure
> > > > standards for classified hard drives that specify bit patterns and
> > > > number of passes required to eliminate residual data traces. Several of
> > > > the software vendors out there claim to be DoD compliant, including this
> > > > one:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.eraseyourharddrive.com
> > >
> > > it doesn't need to be dod compliant
> > >
> > > and if i was using sw to erase it, i'd just use dd if=/dev/random and loop
> > > it 10x or something
> > >
> > > c ya
> > > alvin
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Wing Wong
> > wingedpower at gmail.com
>
>
>
> --
> Wing Wong
> wingedpower at gmail.com
>
>