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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."
Uhm ... or they destroy the harddrive themselves?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
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?
...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.
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
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."
"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
These drives aren't aimed at destroying it's contents from a remote attack, they are for when the drive is about to be physically removed from it's environs (or a similar situation.)
Practically no system is secure from an attack by someone who knows what they are doing when that person is in front of it. Does not matter if it's a Mac, Linux, OpenBSD, etc.
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 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.
Forget a virus or worm.
Imagine the scene if you will.
RING RING RING RING
Click
"Hello, this is john from [company] we are calling to confirm you have won the prize draw you entered..."
(sound of mist being deployed in the background)
Much more malicious, and also much greater chance of it occuring.
liqbase
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. ;)
Not as a primary means of data protection, but they love it as a secondary means. They'd buy these drives *AND* run encrypted filesystems on them. Remember the spy plane that was forced to land in China? When the Chinese military stormed the plane, the comms op was hacking the crypto equipment to bits -- literally, with a large axe. Official recommended procedure, after going through the electronic sterilization steps. Execute all designed-in electronic destruction measures, then follow up with as many physical destruction measures as you have time for.
-----Chaz
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.
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.
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.
1) would just require a bit of experimentation on old dead drives. I believe you can get away with using fairly little thermite (although some overkill doesn't hurt) - you don't have to melt the entire hard drive, casing and all, you just have to scorch the platters beyond recovery.
2) should also be quite doable - since we're not talking excessive amounts of thermite here, I think a 5 1/4"-sized ceramic mount/casing for a regular 3 1/2" drive would work. It just has to be isolated enough to make sure the rest of the computer doesn't burst into flames and burn the house down.
'course, using an external drive would make it even easier...
Anyone up for a summer electronics/pyrotechnics project?
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. ;-)
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
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.
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."
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!
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.
Jeez, you had to go and TELL him? He was feeling so good about his device :P
Freedom: "I won't!"
You assume that some complex number crunching formula will solve the problem of harvesting said data. The DoD, nor do most other govt agencies believe that. They use industrial shreeders and then sometimes even melt said shreadded metal into slag.
;)
A thermite coupled over a drive might be the wiser thing, with an (internal uplinked) serial device that ignites the thermite using outlet power (which you can derive from power supply.
Then, there's fire hazard....... and Thermite reactions are mighty hard to stop
From what I've been told, all military drives have platters made of glass sub strate. As such, they shatter when explosives inside the casing discharging. All it takes is a command and you get an instant maraca for a musical instrument.
Life is not for the lazy.
Ferric chloride is acidic.
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.
Obviously you have no clue. The U-2 may have been a spy plane, but anyone can tell you that the EP-3 is just a maritime patrol aircraft [defenselink.mil]. Besides, it's over 40 years old. If it was a secret spy plane, I don't think you'd be able to google so much information on the subject.
Don't you just love it when an AC without a clue says someonelse needs one?
The EP-3 is the elextronic surveillence version of the P-3 (the US's land based MPA). It is used to intercept ellectonic transmissions (amongst other things) for analysis by the US. While it is overt (it's hard to hide an EP-3 flying over international waters), so is the U-2 (although the U-2 flies high so it's a lot harder to intercept). If you limit spying to covert operations, then it may not be spying but it still was (probably) on on intel mission (or else we would have sent a regular P-3) and not the much rarer EP-3.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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!