Alright so I have taken interest in hard drive deletion. So far from what I have seen the Guttmann uses 35 passes to permanently destroy data but is that true? or is the DoD 5200.28 much better even though its 3 passes?
Is there any means of obtaining that data regardless of the amount of passes or does it depend on the algorithm? I have a hard drive I want to dispose of as its contained my resumes, bank information, taxes and ROE's at one point or another.
What is the best algorithm besides using a hammer?
(Sorry I thought I had using* placed in my post)
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moral hazard Notebook Nobel Laureate
A hammer is not an algorithm.
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Any miscreants will need a High Magnetic Force Scanning Tunneling Microscope to make images at molecular level and then a supercomputer to process and analyze the data of those images.
Success is very, very unlikely with modern ultra high density hdd's, even with the equipment mentioned, writes 'HDD recovery guru' Guttman.
(Read the last paragraph above 'Acknowledgements').
Killdisk or DBAN; one-pass zero; No worries. -
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Make sure the entire disk space is overwritten once and you're good. -
If you really need to destroy data - melt it - I wouldn't trust a hammer as you'll have fragments left over - which individually still carry a lot of data.
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Using a hammer to permanently destroy a disk can be considered an Algorithm. I am not going to bother getting into physics or mathematics of such instructions.
Step 1: Remove Disk from laptop.
Step 2: Place Disk Drive on secure surface.
Step 3: Raise arm in air and exert a downward force aiming towards the Disk Drive assuring the hammer makes contact with the Hard Disk.
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 until Hard Disk in remnants.
Step 5. Dispose of the shattered parts, via trash or fire pit for added security.
Burning it may be abit overboard but I see your point. -
Just loan your computer to my niece--she can mess up a computer so it is unrecognizable faster than any human being on the planet.
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At any rate, as mentioned earlier, one pass should be sufficient. If you're truly worried, I'm sure you could set it up for multiple passes, but as long as all the data is written over, I don't think it would be easy, if at all possible, for most users to obtain the data. -
Firecrackers may work as well.
I always did 3-7 passes when I sold one of my computers, just to be safe ( DoD 5220.22-M) but I heard with computer forensics tools its still possible to extract data.
I could always do an extreme amount of passes say...
Over 9000!!! -
you did say hard drive but for SSD's
(this was in the SSD thread but no answer)
just been reading this
Erasing USB key Drives
does this apply to SSD's? would there be a way to safely and securely clean free space in an SSD? -
- and one pass is enough for flash memory.
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That wear leveling stuff is a problem when it comes to overwriting individual files, but if the the drive's free space is filled to the brim with data all deleted stuff will be overwritten since there is no other place for it to hide.
Most secure deletion apps work that way (dunno about Eraser, I use sdelete), so the only thing you may or may not have to worry about is the additional write cycles on the memory cells.
Securely Destroying Data is it truely secure?
Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by $immond$, Dec 24, 2009.