[clug] An old debate: Forensics study of cleaning old diskdrives sold on e-bay [SEC=PERSONAL]

[Steve McInerney]

on 02/03/09 21:53 Andrew Boyd said the following:
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 9:47 PM, Ben <shadroth at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've heard defence shred theirs.
> 
> Hi Ben,
> 
> Shred and burn, or pound flat with a big hammer. I am not sure if it
> is still the case, but at one stage every comms facility had a
> destruction kit - usually a block hammer and a bottle of scotch. The
> scotch was for drinking in case the hammer ever became necessary.

Way way back when I was doing the Regional IT Security Advisor role in Defence
for the ACT/NSW/Qld; I got a serious call from a military person asking what
to do with their classified PC's in the event of having the hordes charging
over and down the hill at them.

My immediate thought was "Run away?"....


If memory serves, in those days classified HDD's were removable for overnight
secure storage. So pulling one out and doing some quick hammering on the
drives was actually quite feasible. Not perfect by any stretch of the
imagination. I think that's what I suggested and what she then added to their
Security Instructions. Be quite funny if that semi-off-the-cuff and vaguely
flippant answer became "policy" across all the comcens. :-D


To Ben's comment. The disposal facility that was used at the time (early to
late 90's), used to remove the platters. sand blast them, then melt.
I think the sandblasting - to remove the magnetic layer - was overkill and
semi-pointless, but it sounded impressive; and to some extent, making the
Powers That Be, feel happy that Good Things(tm) are happening is part of security.


The guys in the tech security lab did some unscientific (ie because they
could) testing of various acids (circuit board etching etc) on disk platters.

The results were highly inconclusive. Platter A would almost melt in the acid,
platter B would just sit there and stare back at you, apparently unharmed. So
acids alone probably wouldn't be advisable - at least without testing that
yours is susceptible first.


Cheers!
- Steve