Best way to destroy a harddrive's data in about 30 seconds?

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jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,517
223
106
Originally posted by: pontifex
Originally posted by: Fenixgoon
can you disassemble a hard drive in under 30 seconds, just to get to the platters in the first place?
it would take me longer than 30 seconds to even get the case open

Yeah..after the time it would take me to pull the drive, I wouldn't have much time left to do anything..


Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Wala
:|
Originally posted by: Cogman
in loo of
:|
 

smack Down

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2005
4,507
0
0
You need something automated. Thermite isn't going to do anything when the FBI kicks in your door and you still on the shitter. Beside best case is you get charged for arson or being a terrorist.

I would say keep it simple, mount the hard drive under a large weight with a trigger rigged so that when some one tries to remove the hard drive the large weight comes crashing down. Crushing the disk.

Another option would be some kind of concrete but for that to work you would need a way to quickly open the disk. Lets see the guys in bunny suits try and read a platter coated with 6 inches of concrete.
 

manlymatt83

Lifer
Oct 14, 2005
10,051
44
91
Originally posted by: Dumac
Other than melting it in lava or blowing it up, nothing. Techies can recover erased hard drive data pretty easily, despite being wiped, magnetized, or other extreme methods.

Even zero'd?
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,144
12,461
136
Are you going to even be able to get the drive out of the box in 30 seconds? If so, how about a couple of quick whacks with a large axe? Cut that mofo into a couple of pieces...
 

bharatwaja

Senior member
Dec 20, 2007
431
0
0
Say, how about an EMP-grenade with a radius of 10 to 15 feet? Takes out all kinds of storage, SSDs, Flash Drives...
 

aceO07

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2000
4,491
0
76
Truecrypt the drive with a passphrase and a combination of key files. Have the system wipe just the key files upon being physically moved, powered down or opened.
 

CrazyLazy

Platinum Member
Jun 21, 2008
2,124
0
0
I knew a guy that had huge ass electro magnets around the only door to his apartment. If anyone ever tried to walk out with his computer (FBI, robber etc.) in theory it would wipe the contents. He also had some explosive/microwave stuff going on assuming he had the benefit of time to destroy stuff. Yeah he was a pretty weird guy.
 

funkymatt

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2005
3,919
1
81
you guys that are saying just smash it are funny. NASA was able to recover like 90% of the data from a drive that was in the challenger.
 

schizoid77

Senior member
Mar 4, 2008
357
0
0
From what I've read on this so far, I'd say drill some quick holes, run it under the faucet, then toss it in the microwave.
 

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
13,140
138
106
Originally posted by: Xylitol
Originally posted by: Jmman
Originally posted by: ed21x
it will spark up and burn in the microwave. The whole HD will be melted within a minute.

That's my vote. Microwave it.......

i'm sure you can't get it out of your computer and stick it in there all under 30 seconds

I can pull all of my drives out of my main PC in under 10 seconds. They're all in a drive cage held in by a single thumbscrew.

I think if I ever had a need to destroy my drives in under a minute, I would look into a thermite incinerator - take a large, fireproof safe that's lined to prevent the thermite from burning through and rig up some electric way of igniting it. Just toss my entire drive cage into the safe, close the door and hit the button, poof.
 
Nov 5, 2001
18,366
3
0
Originally posted by: Pheran
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
They can still crack the encryption though, we are talking FBI. Encryption will help in addition to physical destruction, but software stuff alone wont be enough.

This is not the movies, and the FBI is not magic. While I have no doubt that the FBI and NSA have some impressive forensics capabilities, cracking AES-256 by brute force is beyond the capability of the total computing power on earth.

IIRC the government has access to all the encryption cyphers commercially available.
 

Mark R

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
8,513
16
81
Originally posted by: manlymatt83
Originally posted by: Dumac
Other than melting it in lava or blowing it up, nothing. Techies can recover erased hard drive data pretty easily, despite being wiped, magnetized, or other extreme methods.

Even zero'd?

No. Zeroed data is pretty much unrecoverable.

There is a very slight gotcha, however, if your data is uber sensitive, military type stuff. Modern hard drives monitor the health of the drive continually - they continually run surface scans when idle, etc. If they detect a 'weak' sector, the data will be recovered, and copied to another spot on the disk. The original sector will then be marked as inactive, and the drive will automatically access the spare instead.

There is a theoretical risk that if a drive contained sensitive data, and the drive started developing weak or bad sectors, copies would be made, and the originals deactivated. Zeroing the drive (incorrectly called a low-level format), because it is a high-level process, will skirt around the weak sectors, leaving them untouched.

With the correct manufacturer specific tool, it may be possible to read data from these weak sectors which was not zeroed.
 

Itchrelief

Golden Member
Dec 20, 2005
1,398
0
71
Originally posted by: Walking in Circles
Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Originally posted by: moparacer
Well not so much the data but if you want to screw it big time so its not "plug and play" force the power connector in upside down with the machine turned on.

I seen someone do that once with a drive and it had a nice burnt smell to it after that and it was toast.....

They'd just take the platters out in a clean room and put it into another drive. Wala, data recovery is in progress.

"Wala" ? lol.

Buku spelling foe pah!
 

smack Down

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2005
4,507
0
0
Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
Originally posted by: Pheran
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
They can still crack the encryption though, we are talking FBI. Encryption will help in addition to physical destruction, but software stuff alone wont be enough.

This is not the movies, and the FBI is not magic. While I have no doubt that the FBI and NSA have some impressive forensics capabilities, cracking AES-256 by brute force is beyond the capability of the total computing power on earth.

IIRC the government has access to all the encryption cyphers commercially available.

Really, show me one court case where evidence has been introduced based on breaking strong encryption? If the CIA/FBI/etc has the ability they are not going to use it and confirm that they have that ability.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,601
166
111
www.slatebrookfarm.com
You guys are worried about nothing. First of all, I don't have anything on my computer which I wouldn't let my kids, boss, or anyone else from the community view.

However, we recently had an assembly at my school (we're required to do a couple a year on such topics) about internet safety. The assembly was facilitated by someone from the FBI in Buffalo whose job it is to do computer forensics. She showed students a video on a screen at the front of the auditorium. It would have been nice if three-quarters of the students could actually see the video, but she apparently didn't know how to full-size a video in Windows Media Player.

So, I don't know what you guys are worried about. Heck, you could probably rename your files to "how to build a light saber replica.mpg" and they'd never look. :p
 

ConstipatedVigilante

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2006
7,670
1
0
Originally posted by: smack Down
Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats
Originally posted by: Pheran
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
They can still crack the encryption though, we are talking FBI. Encryption will help in addition to physical destruction, but software stuff alone wont be enough.

This is not the movies, and the FBI is not magic. While I have no doubt that the FBI and NSA have some impressive forensics capabilities, cracking AES-256 by brute force is beyond the capability of the total computing power on earth.

IIRC the government has access to all the encryption cyphers commercially available.

Really, show me one court case where evidence has been introduced based on breaking strong encryption? If the CIA/FBI/etc has the ability they are not going to use it and confirm that they have that ability.

wat?
 

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
0
81
Originally posted by: Mark R
Originally posted by: manlymatt83
Originally posted by: Dumac
Other than melting it in lava or blowing it up, nothing. Techies can recover erased hard drive data pretty easily, despite being wiped, magnetized, or other extreme methods.

Even zero'd?

No. Zeroed data is pretty much unrecoverable.

There is a very slight gotcha, however, if your data is uber sensitive, military type stuff. Modern hard drives monitor the health of the drive continually - they continually run surface scans when idle, etc. If they detect a 'weak' sector, the data will be recovered, and copied to another spot on the disk. The original sector will then be marked as inactive, and the drive will automatically access the spare instead.

There is a theoretical risk that if a drive contained sensitive data, and the drive started developing weak or bad sectors, copies would be made, and the originals deactivated. Zeroing the drive (incorrectly called a low-level format), because it is a high-level process, will skirt around the weak sectors, leaving them untouched.

With the correct manufacturer specific tool, it may be possible to read data from these weak sectors which was not zeroed.

False - US DoD standard is to zero fill a drive 8 times.

You think the last 7 are useless? Sorry... no.

I realize the hypothetical nature of this thread and all, but jeez I'm with Pacfanweb and Pizza - I don't do anything remotely questionable in the first place.

-Kevin