From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 20 16:30:32 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0EFCF16A4CE for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from male.aldigital.co.uk (male.thebunker.net [213.129.64.13]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A3B8543D58 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:31 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from matthew@thebunker.net) Received: from gravitas.thebunker.net (gateway.ash.thebunker.net [213.129.64.4]) (using TLSv1 with cipher EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA (168/168 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by male.aldigital.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AEF497652; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from gravitas.thebunker.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) j0KGUNHQ001478; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:24 GMT (envelope-from matthew@gravitas.thebunker.net) Received: (from matthew@localhost) by gravitas.thebunker.net (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id j0KGULJb001477; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:21 GMT (envelope-from matthew) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:21 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman To: Anthony Atkielski Message-ID: <20050120163021.GA393@gravitas.thebunker.net> Mail-Followup-To: Matthew Seaman , Anthony Atkielski , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <200501200929.j0K9TXbl022106@mp.cs.niu.edu> <41EF92A2.30506@incubus.de> <41EF9BB3.4030805@locolomo.org> <20050120130838.K768@kenmore.kozy-kabin.nl> <946782147.20050120155101@wanadoo.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <946782147.20050120155101@wanadoo.fr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD I LOVE YOU X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:30:32 -0000 --/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 03:51:01PM +0100, Anthony Atkielski wrote: > Colin J. Raven writes: >=20 > CJR> Eh? Surely you don't meant trashed - physically annihilated? >=20 > Absolutely. That's the only safe way to protect data. Any disk drive > with platters that are even remotely intact can still be read. >=20 > I have yet to throw away any disk drives for this reason (can't find a > convenient place to have them destroyed). Most disks nowadays use a metallic surface as the magnetic medium. If you're really paranoid about destroying the data on the drive, then heating it up beyond it's Curie temperature should do the trick. For iron the Curie temperature is 1043K (or 770 degC) -- other ferromagnetic metals should be in the same ball park. Thus heating the disk platters until they glow red-hot (about 800 degC) should be enough to wipe any magnetic data on them. You can achieve that sort of temperature readily enough using a good bed of charcoal and a bellows, or you might be able to use a butane powered blow-torch. But on the whole, unless you're dealing with people's confidential medical information or with state secrets why got to that degree of expense? Just overwrite the data with a series of different patterns of 1s and 0s, which will be sufficient to render the data unrecoverable for all practical purposes and send the drives for scrap. If you're really paranoid, you might render the drives definitively unsable by drilling a hole through them as well as overwriting. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 8 Dane Court Manor School Rd PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Tilmanstone Tel: +44 1304 617253 Kent, CT14 0JL UK --/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD) iQCVAwUBQe/cnZr7OpndfbmCAQLzmQP9EwhDnf5/8T0Xn/YFC28addb+8yq2N6dR POuVpS4v3giCd5KxidVK/yI6plc3KaPBrzzM5UTGc3+WoPCoucSpEm3j/8bXJbGS pZLpBd2RhI/PZVcq7LgXTb3g7UhSbBRUDoDkJ2p2jro/JjOl/Ms+4VebeZezE2yk YkA6RrZ1qkI= =RVyC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --/9DWx/yDrRhgMJTb--