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The Great Zero Challenge Remains Unaccepted
An anonymous reader writes "Not even data recovery companies will accept The Great Zero Challenge and only four months remain! We've all heard how easily data can be recovered from hard drives. We're told to make multiple overwrites with random data, to degauss drives and even physically destroy them just to be extra safe. Let's get the word out. The challenge is almost over! It's put up or shut up time. Can you recover the data?"
000 000, 0 000 0000 0000000 0 0 0 0000 00000! 000 0 000 000 0000000 000 000000 00000? 00 000 000000!
000 000 00 0000 000.
That word "percent", I don't think it means what you think it means...
No sig today...
Last month, I challenged every female olympic gymnast to prove she was over 16 by having sex with me. (The age of consent is 16 in my state). To date, every gymnast has ignored me, with the exception of 1 whose boyfriend threatened to kill me. Therefore, we now have proof that all the female olympic gymnasts are under 16 and should be disqualified.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Agreed. They should save the expense of shipping the drive and just email a drive image instead. Being all zeros, it should compress well...
Yes, but once the Nation of Data Recovery rises, that prize will seem a lot better.
See, here I was thinking a Cylon. Number 6 specifically.
Hmmm, you get to keep the drive if you win which also means you get to keep any data recovered. If it's filled with pirated music that could add up to a lot of money at $750 per track.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
The company which demonstrates this ability would be internet legend. It would be named in every discussion about recovery and safe deletion schemes. Too bad it can't be done.
I think somebody needs their money back from their forensics certification.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Read the source.
If you feed it a long string of zeros and don't give it any stopping conditions, it activates the drive's vacuum pump and removes all of the air. This step eliminates the cushion keeping the heads off of the disk, so while "writing" zeros, they're also shaving a layer of magnetic material.
This is more than sufficient to wipe your drive and prepare for a fresh install, unless your drive uses vertical bits. Keep in mind, though, that hard drives are like wood floors. You can only plane them two, three times, tops, before they have to be replaced.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
someone is supposed to waste a lot of time and money for just a cheap drive and a piece of paper from some entity no one has ever heard of?
I know the dollar has declined in value a lot in recent years, but it's hyperbole to call $40 "a piece of paper from some entity no one has ever heard of"
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Kindly sir, I am a Nigerian Prince trying to transfer some data from a zero-ed out hard drive to my cousin in the U.S.A. If you would kindly deposit $60 into my bank account, I will send you the hard drive. Upon your transmission of the data to my cousin, I will promptly return your $60, plus $40 for your effort. You may also keep the hard drive.
Your friend,
Prince Njeme Nawabi, P.O.S.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
It's always satisfying to fix a computer problem with a hammer, even though you are being very careful.
It's called percussive maintenance.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I can just picture it: The FBI kicks down your door at 3:40am, male voices scream "F-B-I", guns clicking, laser-sight dots hushing over the walls, someone jumps through your bedroom window, kicks you out of bed knocks you onto the floor, jams his knee into your neck... Then a nutty professor with fat glasses in a white coat runs onto the scene and screams "FREEZE!!!" as he sprays ice onto your RAM modules...
C'mon kids, won't happen. You've been to the movies too much. In the real world they just send you a letter. And you pay and/or get to clean some public spaces. And mommy will lock away the computer. That's it.
For $40?
I don't do anything IT-related for $40. I'd charge $120 to lean down and press your power button.
Comment of the year
If this challenge is not taken within a year I have the right to tell the world that the worlds dry cleaners can't remove ketchup stains. The whole clothes cleaning industry is a hoax.
Screw all you nay-sayers. I'm going to patent this idea and make fools of all of you.
So far, I've got:
"A method and process for inducing legitimate data recovery researchers and practitioners to reveal their deepest trade secrets for a lousy eighty bucks. This patent covers all similar activities in any business, profession, hobby or pastime that my lawyers can stretch it to include."