Wait, why did the Guardian destroy a GRAPHICS CARD?!

[NTMBK]

The remains of a computer that held files leaked by Edward Snowden to the Guardian and destroyed at the behest of the UK government. Photograph: Roger Tooth for the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london

What the hell? That's a graphics card at the top, or I'm a monkey's uncle. Why the hell did they destroy that? Did they really think they could dredge things out of the VRAM or something?

 

[sunzt]

The question is, why not?

 

[Golgatha]

For the lulz?

 

[nehalem256]

To show how serious they were

 

[werepossum]

Graphics cards have memory. Therefore graphics cards are an evil threat to the new world order.

Besides, the whole point of this exercise was to slap around these journalists and their loved ones until they behave in government-approved fashion. Leaving unbroken electronics hardly sends that message.

 

[PowerYoga]

our own government destroys mouse and monitors to prevent "intelligence" leaks. Why are you surprised?

 

[TerryMathews]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london

What the hell? That's a graphics card at the top, or I'm a monkey's uncle. Why the hell did they destroy that? Did they really think they could dredge things out of the VRAM or something?

You seem to be operating under the assumption that the agents truly believed this would put the genie back in the bottle.

This was legalized payback.

 

[sunzt]

our own government destroys mouse and monitors to prevent "intelligence" leaks. Why are you surprised?

Actually USB mice can have malicious software that stores data into memory on the mice.

 

[CptDanko]

Actually USB mice can have malicious software that stores data into memory on the mice.

Exactly, anything that can be written to can have malicious code. If the hardware has a firmware chip then it can be written to.