Slashdot Mirror
Death On Demand Drive Tech
Xanderoth writes "Engadget has an article on 'Dead on Demand' technology to destroy your disk drive should it be compromised by any number of ways. From the article: 'Configurable triggers such as removal or tampering of the drive, removal of device from a resting GPS point, cellular telephone call, or even a change in temperature will release a chemical mist into the drive (not the computer) destroying it layer by layer.' Of course the drives, due out next year, are expected to be priced between $2,500 to $9,000 each, plus a yearly fee."
The regulars on not4chan should be pleased.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Uhm ... or they destroy the harddrive themselves?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Death On Demand Drive Tech? Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?
Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
From TFA:
Damnit! I had this exact same idea over a year ago!
Actually, it wasn't exactly the same...*my* idea involved C4.
....which makes it EVEN BETTER , IMNSHO...
If I had just marketed it, I'd be in Aruba by now....*sigh*
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What drive do you want to nuke today?
Configurable triggers such as warranty + 1?
...that looks for these drives and triggers the self-destruct if it finds any.
Please make payment immediately to avoid automatic loss of data.
Please note that this is for your protection - since if your drive is not protected against theft, we will activate the antitheft device to ensure that your data won't fall into the wrong hands.
So that's why Indiana Jones couldn't take the Grail with him...
I swear every Maxtor drive I've ever had has this feature...
Any number of triggers activate self destruct mode...
Defragging the hard drive
Installing a new OS
Turning the machine on
Just buy a Maxtor and all you have to do to destroy your data is... use it. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I've been delivering death on demand for years. I gots me the kung-fu grip.
Why destroy when you can simply have everything be encrypted? It's cheaper too, in fact there are some free / open source on the fly encryption programs that can do large partitions:
Do any of the Linux distributions do encryption, of even full partition/harddrive encryption? That maybe ideal.
I'd like to see them fire me then!
"I'm fired. Oh really?" - presses speed dial 1 on cellphone.
"There go the production servers hard drives. Lets discuss my retirement package quickly. Maybe we won't lose all the offsite backups."
Good thing you didn't take out a patent on it.
A must have accessory for those "this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds" moments.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
This brings a whole new meaning to Someone set us up the bomb.
If you're reading this, stop it.
Jim Phelps
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Your hard drive will be held hostage...
A terrible waste of a microwave and a waste of space, since you'd need to have the microwave just next to your PC box, though...
Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
Configurable triggers such as removal or tampering of the drive, removal of device from a resting GPS point, cellular telephone call, or even a change in temperature will release a "chemical mist" into the drive (not the computer) destroying it layer by layer.
I can see a new aim for telemarketers... "How many hard drives can we destroy this year??"
I've wondered sometimes about the best way to quickly destroy a hard disk. It's difficult to come up with a relatively safe way to go about it. My best idea was a thermite insert that stood between the cover plate and the platter, and stock drives could be modified. This is also horribly dangerous. The idea in the article is much better and safer.
Can't wait to see them get some targeted worm that jacks up a group of hard drives. Security guy --short on trust. It's a requirement for the job.
"plus a yearly fee." ... which you WILL pay... or else you will get to see our drive-destroying technology in action!
All I see there, on not4chan.org, are drawings. In some areas they are illegal I'm sure (along with 'regular' pornography too). However - at least in the United States - drawings are deemed legal since no person was harmed in the process.
:).
Pretty good principle, if an action or behaviour by a person harms no one (or only the person themself) then it should be allowed. I'd call it the harm principle I'd call it the harm principle or maybe negative liberty
Why exactly would someone spend $2000 on self-destructive hardware when they can just encrypt the entire drive at the block level to begin with? It makes the data on the drive worthless to thieves, yet doesn't cost anything.
We do this all the time with our Linux laptops using loop-AES and a password and/or USB key before mounting the drive. Since unencrypted data never touches the disk itself, it can just be discarded or reused with a simple zero wipe.
Besides, the self destructive approach would never be acceptable in a military or top secret installation - certifiably strong full-disk encryption (not just a BIOS or hard disk based password) is mandated here anyway.
Apparently this is intended for Windows users who don't have the fully-encrypted-drive option.
...
... the mist is released. :-)
Sounds a lot like James Bond's burglar proof car.
Reminds me of the early 90's when I first got access to a pirate BBS. I was so concerned that they would get busted and I'd get raided that I set up a script that would blow away my entire hard drive with one click.
The stage is set.
So, a month after I get access I'm hanging out on the BBS at about 11pm and there's a knock at my door. I look through the window and see a police officer. I run the script and answer the door with as much composure as I can muster.
The police officer looks at me strangely like he was expecting me to react in some way. He then asked if I called. When I said no, he realized that he was at the wrong apartment.
I don't know about you but my computer is under my desk, very close to my testicles. Some script-kiddie would be able to trigger it with a bad ICMP packet and I doubt I would like it.
I imagine myself walking with a GPS Jammer around data centers like a little kid imagining how many drives I just blew away ....
This isn't a bad idea, but I imagine it's going to be a windfall for any child pornographers. How are you going to put them away if the hard drive's a bubbling mass of goop (or just...not readable. But they should use bubbling-goop chemicals just to make it more interesting).
Of course, I can just see it going in the PGP direction: "He felt the need to buy a $9K hard drive to protect his stuff! He MUST have had something to hide! Guilty!"
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
For every N drives they sell, I would put at N the number of people who at some point say,
"Ooops -- oh, crap."
Is Murphy's Law just not taught any more?
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I had this idea about 20 years back about how compact disks would beat the crap out of tape drives if they'd use them on computers...no patent here either. :)
probably not, he would think the hammer is a much more cost effective solution. atleast thats what would have happend to me if i ever ended up in such a situation.
Um. Yo. Thank N.S.
Yeah I have a data center like I have no plaurized this idea from the Cryptonomicon
Aruba? I thought people fleeing liability suits went to the Christmas Islands.
I can not directly relate this to a HD so this is probably somewhat off topic..
I created some user induced destructing car stereo amplifiers.
I removed the painted on "Pos(+)" and "Neg(-)" markings from the power terminals and painted new labels on them that were backwards. I also used a black wire for the positive wire and a red for the negative. I used stencils from some old electronic hobby kits I had laying around and they matched perfectly. Jump ahead about 5 years and sure enough, those amplifiers were stolen as well. I can only hope that the person that attempted to hook them up the first time fried them in the process. Yes, I had some free time on my hands back then but I was so frustrated when my stereo was taken the first time that the relabeling the replacement equipment did not seem like a such a waste of time. The fact that there is a good chance this equipment will be ruined does make me feel a little bit better.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
You know, I heard Thermite was very effective in the trials. ;)
death ray?
In soviet russia, hard drive destroys YOU!
but im sure there are plenty of new customers
I read a story years ago about a bookie joint that got raided by the police. The bookies had a large electromagnet rigged next to the hard drive, with a switch for it outside the computer case. The bookies had activated the electromagnet as soon as the raid started. The hard drive was wiped completely clean and the police had to drop their case for lack of evidence.
I think the author entangled his drive ideas.
from TFA -
"The drives will be available "early next year" for between $2,500 to $9,000 each."
the yearly fee is only the for the other solutions that are already available like -
"Other solutions exist to delete data or lock the computer if a user enters too many failed passwords or does not login at all over a specified length of time -- Beachhead Solutions will sell you their offering for $129 a year per computer."
To summarize, the new drives aren't on a yearly fee, only the other offerings mentioned that are already on the market.
now no one shall discover my magical girl pretty sammy hentai collection
What, are you people too good to use an old fashioned hammer nowadays?
Who besides criminals would have a real use for this?
Why not simply make sure nobody gets physical access to your HDD?
And what if an intruder simply copies all the data instead of stealing the HDD?
And what about your backups?
Explosives - an intensive enough shock wave through the platter is going to have the same effect as raising the metal above the curie temperature - all magnetic info will be gone, in addition to portions of the drive getting propelled through the wall.
Heat - warm it up beyond the curie temperature, will probably also melt and burn any nearby plastic. As a bonus smoke will make it hard to get data from any drives not protected by this feature.
Really big electromagnets - it's hard to be sure you've removed all trace of magnetic information with a magnet, so go one step furthur and use those electromagnets as an induction furnace - melt that drive!
Hit it really hard - a shock wave through the material can change the phase and wipe out all that information, so something with a decent surface area moving around the speed of sound will probably do it.
At this point some form of chemical attack seems to make a lot more sense, since it can be compact and probably won't cause the building to burn to the ground.
Actually, C4 is no good at all ... too destructive and if you actually kill someone in your effort to destroy your hard disk a murder charge will probably it all seem pointless.
No, I recommend a concealed thermite charge. Turn the drive into a hissing, glowing, molten mass in the bottom of the enclosure. Of course, it would be a good idea to line the case with asbestos or something similar.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Make your own! Terrorists do it all the time! GPS, Cell phone calls... seems easy enough.
What happens if you don't pay the yealy fee?
Do they make the magic call that destroys the drive?
-Lord Shadow
Microsoft is getting serious about this licensing thing. "Refuse to pay us an annual fee and we will destory your computer!" Installing Linux won't help!
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
. . .removal of **** from a resting GPS point, cellular telephone call, or even a change in temperature will release a chemical mist into the drive (not the computer) destroying it layer by layer.
.can i get one of these fitted to my spouse?
ummm. .
For much less and zero maintenance fees you could just buy a big magnet and put it on top of your hard drive. Then have a missile style toggle switch with a red cover on your case to turn the magnet on. If really adventurous, you could tie the switch to a phone line. There would be no software involved and you'd probably save about $1.7k.
It'd be much cooler too.
Pedophiles, of course. Great.
Configurable triggers such as removal or tampering of the drive, removal of device from a resting GPS point, cellular telephone call, or even a change in temperature
Change of temperature of the drive: Ok Smart one. You power down the system to do some maintenance poof there goes your drive. Or Your AC dies, Or you get a new cooler AC in. Or you do some unusual heavy processing. That is a wast.
removal of the device from a resting GPS point: Doesn't GPS need line of site. I know when I am driving my cars GPS will not work if there are to many trees overhead. Opps a war just started, in canada. GWB first order turn off a civilian GPS so we can have a greater tactical advantage.
Cell Telephone Call. I can see it someone one has the number and code in their host list and acidently hit the button. Poof. Also hacker with a war dialer.
Removal or Tampering: The system needs to be fixed (because your second mirror self destructing drive died) Well lets take out the drive... Opps wrong one. Poof!
This technology can lead to to much stupid mistakes. Issues such as high levels of encryption. Putting the system in a secure computer room with a heavy door and lock. and keep it locked. Good security and IT policies in place.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Apparently the new way to karma whore is to not use the preview button. ;-)
Really, doesn't anyone backup their drive anymore?
And what about these backups?
Or is that what teh annual fee is for... providing online backup service....?
Ok so someone steals your drive and gives it to those you do not want to have it.... that is solved here by what..... you giving your data to those you don't want to have it?
all you need is this:g niters.htm h tml ...and a bit of engineering experience.
http://www.shoplite.com/pat-1gp.htm
this:
http://www.rockets-2-go.com/rockets/information/i
and this:
http://www.reade.com/Products/Elements/magnesium.
: )
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
Why not simply make sure nobody gets physical access to your HDD?
....
Maybe I'm served with a subpoena requiring me to give the drive to the FBI or whoever. Or maybe it's my data, but the drive is sitting in a colocation slot -- Federal Marshalls swoop down on the ISP, seize the drive.
Might be handy if the drive self-destructed
-kgj
-kgj
...could design something much better. Like a HDD that shoots out flames to burn any would be tamperer to a crisp.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Almost 2,000 years. But they were stored in an arid climate. Almost all extant documents from that time period are from Alexandria Egypt or the deserts of Palestine. So make sure you have your monks store those in a nice dry place.
does the drive play the mission impossible theme while it's being accessed?
I suggest making your own with a layer of thermite on top of the drive. I wouldn't trust a chemical mist to destroy data to the point where it couldn't be read with a SQUID device, I want to see my hard drive melt! Plus if they charge $9000, you'd be hardpressed to build a computer expensive enough where it would cost more than if the whole thing was toasted.
what sig?
But since the child pornography problem is routinely overstated, this wouldn't be a problem.
Yes, its overstated, because child pornography is the most common excuse used for violating our civil rights.
"We can't allow [insert something the cops fear here] because it will only aid child pornographers. Thank heavens for 9/11 and terrorists; it allows the cops and politicians to work another cliche for a decade or two.
How's the government going to implement a clipper chip in these drives? I'd expect the US government to block this technology because terrorists might use the drives.
-Rich
We should get one of these for Orrin Hatch.
Can you imagine, ring, ring, "Hello, is this Sheila? What an odd hissing noise. Sheila, are you there? I can hear faint noises.... Sheila, is there a man in your house? I hear him yelling. Pick up the phone! Oh dear, some man is crying, I can hear it.... Why doesn't anyone pick up the phone? I wonder if I dialed right."
A thousand years from now someone will find Those famous high-desert DVD-Rs... which some freak of preserving environments will have saved.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
What? And you DON'T have a backup?
... more self-destructing hard drives.
Okay, for the sake of argument, I've got a backup or two
-kgj
-kgj
I would like a feature where say 5 bad passwords destroys the drive. Type carefully!
^^vv<><>BA
Now, put an RFID tag on the HDD, an RFID reader in the door frame, and one mother of an electromagnetic pulse triggered when the reader scans the tag. :)
I'd rather HERF the sucker than use a magnet.
The way to do this is so simple, using plain old off-the-shelf drive components. Here's how you do it. Every drive sold today has a built-in buffer, so they all have built-in storage and processing which stores every block in RAM before writing it out to disk, and looks for the block in RAM before fetching it from disk. So there's a reasonable amount of smart electronics in there right now, and it's all totally transparent to the IDE interface. In other words, the host computer doesn't need to know anything about what the electronics are doing as they read and write blocks from the physical media.
So the way to do this is to have an encryption operation put in the loop. The encryption key is stored in a small bit of ROM somewhere. There are two electrodes across this ROM, hooked up to a nice sized capacitor.
When some triggering event (any kind of event which could be detected by some kind of electronics, which include all the same things this device works on) decides "it's time to make this disk unrecoverable" then that capacitor is discharged, turning the ROM (with the encryption key) into a little piece of melted glass.
Problem solved! All using existing off-the-shelf stuff. It's something that could be easily retrofitted into existing drive designs for not much money. Some geek could probably put it together in a couple of weeks and start selling them. And because this is now being published here on Slashdot it can't be patented.
It still boggles my mind. What are they doing messing around with chemicals to attempt to destroy a surface, when they could just do it all in electronics.
They still need the same kind of tamper resistance, but this whole thing allows the disk's contents to be destroyed forever in microseconds, no chemical reactions needed, based on any electronic trigger.
Oh yeah, there would also need to be a lithium battery to keep the destructo-capacitor charged, and there would need to be a circuit that discharges the capacitor if the case is tampered with, and all that other stuff. QED.
it works gr
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
For only $9,000 a piece we can supply the entire DoD with hard drives that fight terrorism!
On top of that counter-hack there is likely a number of other ways to get data into / out of your data center without going through that magnetic door.
If you are trying to build/run a high security isolation data center then I'd recommend that you consult with someone who specializes in van Eck / Tempest security. Not only will they me able to assist you with building a good trap, they will be able help create an environment that can protect your data against a wide variety of other threats as well. Isolation data centers are a speciality. Unless you have that skill, or access to someone who does, all that you wind up with is a dead-bolt on a paper door that only gives you the illusion of security.
IAAICS (I am an isolation chamber specialist).
chongo (was here)
I want this for my kids!
If someone tries to kidnap them, they blow up! If I can't have them no one can!
Disclaimer: Don't worry, I don't actually have kids.
Get your Unix fortune now!
i prefer the hard drives that release a mild electric charge at the exact frequency and wavelength to stop a human heart instantly. for one, there is no burning corpse to dispose of, just a normal 'oh he had a heart attack' corpse to get rid of, a simple 911 call, the forensics finds his heart stopped, since the electric shock is so low voltage there are no burn marks, and none the wiser..
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Most amps like that have a diode across the power input, configured to be forward biased if the amp is hooked up backwards. That way all the current goes through the diode, and the amp sees only -.7V across it.
The current then is enough to blow the fuse.
Now, if you had removed the diode, and the fuse holder....
Or better still, replaced the diode with a diode and a squib, and a little thermite.
www.eFax.com are spammers
good old fashion plastic explosives?
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Of course, you'd want a fuzzy logic trigger of some sort - not just a single thing to set it off.
You'd want the files encrypted, so that, with just a handful of bytes per file corrupted, cracking the encryption would be trouble.
I'd like to know what the "chemical mist" is.
We had a slashdot article on this very thing many, many years ago. 1999? 2000? It was pointed out that using explosives could get you a nice criminal charge, and using most serious acids could also allow you to be creatively charged. Someone suggested an acid (and named) an acid that would work nicely on the top layer of the platters but be harmless to human skin.
Any ideas?
Always wondered what happened to all the defective IBM drives from the 75 series. Looks like they found a new use for them.
Over a year? I thought it was in 1996.
I like to have control over my property.
Oh yeah. Ashcroft and his supervisor, Dubbya, will LOVE this one. By the will of Allah, they'll make sure this company is taken good care of.
Real. Good. Care.
Maybe if they self-destructed every six months on the dot, my users would finally learn to back their shit up!
Of course, they still wouldn't. It'd just be my fault somehow. Sigh.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
It seems that FreeBSD's geom disk (or partition) encryption allows you to destroy all the master keys should the need arise. It's not the same as having the HD die on you, but if the disks take the end of the earth to actually decrypt, it's as good as dead.
If this thing gets popular, how long you figure before someone writes a virus that triggers it?
At least that's what we told the students. Haven't had any problems yet - will keep you posted.
I hear Aruba isn't so safe these days...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Yeah, was working on the same thing with thermite. Arguably does a better job at ensuring total destruction of the platters than a high explosive. Just needed a ceramic casing to contain it long enough to melt the whole drive into slag.
A friend and I did some experiments that looked pretty promising. I'll have to post some video someday. Of course, we didn't have any actual use for such drives personally.. it was more just an excuse to melt scrap hardware into slag.
"Nice hard drives you have there....it'd be a shame if something were to...happen...to them..."
*Twidling fingers and evil smirk.* <-- obligatory
Unless its based on ellipics, I dont trust it...
Unless you believe that the NSA and such dont have Qubit based computers.....
You don't have to use the whole brick. I imagine about an ounce in direct contact with the drive enclosure ought to do the trick.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
instant melt
Table-ized A.I.
He just lists all the things that can go wrong with these setups. Well, duh. This isn't for Aunt Tillie or whatever, this is for corporations protecting trade secrets, *maybe* a backup data protection plan for the military, and radical individualists.
All of these entities either have good backups or compelling reasons to take the risk.
"Change of temperature of the drive: Ok Smart one..."
Yes, it is. I'm sure the trivial cases you bring up were never thought of by the engineers there. You know, they wouldn't test things like "drive is accessed". It's also possible that someone would desire "AC goes dead" to blow their drive away, because their AC never goes dead and their tape backups are far safer than their operational systems- but recall that the military was at one point testing (and may have actually used) a type of hard drive replacement that used bacteria. Why? When the built in refrigeration unit goes, the bacteria were said to quickly lose the data. So something as trivial as "I want all the data to go away when the power does" is actually *desired* for some applications.
"removal of the device from a resting GPS point: Doesn't GPS need line of site."
You would presumably install it somewhere it *had* RF line of sight, and losing it would trigger the destruction. I wouldn't want this ever for my personal data, but that doesn't mean that there is no customer interested in this.
"Cell Telephone Call. I can see it someone one has the number and code in their host list and acidently hit the button. Poof."
Like, is everything in your world a terrible SNL skit or something? The war dialing would be a *serious* risk, assuming that you just have to dial the number. If you have to dial the number and enter an eight symbol confirm code, however, that's very different. I'll assume that that is actually the case, because that would make a lot more sense. You would also want a common number that would serve many customers, or else you will be mapping one of each telephone number to a hard drive, which seems silly.
"Removal or Tampering: The system needs to be fixed..."
Oh good grief.
Look, I'll bet that these things go into use, and customers *DO* accidentally lose data from time to time. I'll also bet that those customers feel that an x% chance of losing data in a given year is worth it, because that just means that you take N*x (where N is the amount of money it costs your engineers to fix it) and budget that in. Maybe they'll end up thinking x is lower than it really is, but I can't imagine it would be that high.
A few years ago I set up a similar system for a private client who wanted to "dispose" of data in a hurry if needed. I never asked what he wanted it for, figuring the less I knew the better. We wraped 2 feet of demolision cord around the drive, covered that with a length of 1/16th inch copper to shape the charge. When we tested it- it cut a old full size Seagate completely in half. All this was attached to the "Turbo" button on the case. (Finally a practical use for that button)
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if a million kilobytes worth of porno suddenly cried out in twisted pleasure, and then, suddenly, silence.
"Well minions, as you can see we have a new data destruction mechanism the workings of which are far too complex for your ant-brains to comprehend.
It works like this: There are certain words that will trigger the catastrophic destruction of all data that the one who uttered the offending word has worked on. This is done by means of the flechette pistol you see mounted into the ceiling. In addition, this Japanese robot will then commence to cut someone in the room's finger off at random and give them a good hose down with the fire-extinguisher.
I can tell you for certain the following words will not trigger the destruction: good, morning, time, for, lunch, bye and work.
That is all. Any questions?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
We abhor the destruction of innocent hard-drive life through hard-drive death on demand. We implore you to outlaw hard-drive abortions.
Hahaha thats classic :D
For a much simpler method simply have a program load your private data into RAM on start-up and remove it from the disk with an insane number of write/erases, then put it back if you shut down properly (maybe a hidden key sequence and password).
When the cops come to raid you they will just hit the power and rip the machine off your desk (how many times have you seen cops carrying computers out of raids on the news?), and viola, not only have they destroyed the evidence (technically it was their incompetence and nothing to do with you), they have _also_ destroyed the data copying program (which also copied into RAM) so there's no evidence that there was any evidence in the first place.
Remember just destroying something is useless if you're left with a charred remains, that's evidence in itself and can get you into allot of trouble.
The great advantage of this method is its hardware independent - you could potentially install it on any system in minutes, its untraceable in almost every way (buying a physical piece of hardware might be tracable, especially if your credit card bill says 'data safe hard disk' on it) and with the insane explosion in memory you can easily fit most things on it.
The only downside would be unreliability if you lost power or had a crash but this can be over come with additional systems and UPS.
I just hope that in this day and age we're not breaking any laws by just talking about data destruction.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
we had these squibs in the sensitive electronics. tampering would set off a small explosive or thermal charge and destroy the 'secret bits'. It's much less expensive to do pyrotechnically. Pyro can be safe too.
find the market of people crazy enough to buy a disk drive that might quit working when they least need it too. This disk will self destruct in ten seconds.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
However, to most computers in the world, this would appear to be a payload-less virus (or worm)- only the tiny percentage with this style of drive would notice any ill effects. (Besides possible bandwidth usage.)
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This baby did't need some silly demand to die. Plus, it featured the "click of death" (TM).
Ah well, they just don't make 'm like they used to!
At a previous employer, they had a very high turn over of consultants. Since they considered the data on the hard drive to be a corporate asset, they wanted the stuff fragged if the employee quit or was about to be fired. So the company starts this quiet project to build something that would wipe the drive. It was expected that this would be buggy, and go off randomly, so that the consultants wouldn't be surprised when their laptop became a brick (if everyone who's laptop locked up was subsequently fired, or if their laptop locked up when they were fired, it would tell the consultants too much information). The project was cancelled in 2001 when it was discovered that there were a number of commercial products doing this stuff. The SysAdmins rejoiced when the project was cancelled since the network virus checker was constantly complaining that our group was infected with about 30 virii and trojans each.
just image a telemarketer calls that phone number...
There is no yearly fee for this drive. The yearly fees apply to other services mentioned in the article. Those involve a third party who you are paying for an ongoing service, unlike the misting device where a piece of hardware does all the work.
Yes! There's an idea! Line the case with something thats known to cause cancer! (/sarcasim)
The best thing for localised destruction would probibally be a shaped charge. Getting it right, you could use just one charge for all your drives; the explosive force being focused down through the main part of the disks, thus destroying them.
The other advantage of the shaped charge is that you'll only leave a hefty hole in the carpet, not a burning smoldering mass inside a case..
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
" not4chan.org == "drawn" 'xxxxxxxxxx', you sick fuck."
;), a drawing does not harm anyone thus if you follow the harm principle then it should be allowed. If you do not believe in the harm principle I'm sure you have a an arguement to justify laws in disallowing behaviours that harm no one (or only the person themself).
Replace 'xxxxxxxxxx' with gay men or women kissing, black / white sex, women naked (in many muslim countries), midgets, and I don't think it would make a material difference to that statement.
No, the key word you should have clued into there is "drawn" I think.
As well since, so far as I know
"Being sexually attracted to 6 or 8 year olds is not a crime. Acting on those attractions is."
Acting on those attractions now, instead of say 2000-3000 years ago in Greece and other places, in some countries is.
I can't remember whether it's based on ellipics...
NSA has historically been asked to intercept, gather, compile, etc... data for stuff like espionage, foreign policy and stuff like that. They do far more intelligence work than what the public thinks CIA is doing. I'm sure NSA have enough server farms to crack many of the encryption, but I would think if you made the government to ship your disks to NSA to be decrypted, I think you got other things to worry about than cracking the actual data.
Incidentally, I just might be flagged for saying that.