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Unclean Military Hard Drives Sold On eBay
An anonymous reader writes "The Daily Mail reports, 'Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defense system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay.
The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ground to air missile defense system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.
The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities, and personal information on employees (including social security numbers) belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin — who designed and built the system.'
Scary that they did not wipe it to Department of Defense standards, which I believe is wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it."
..the market is being flooded with Chinese made ground to air missile defence systems, available for a quarter of the price, and half the accuracy.
Fine Print: THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE SYSTEM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW
In the UK, the government uses magnetic fields generated by train seats to erase sensitive data.
Your comment is utterly devoid of value unless you can prove you have something worthwhile to respond with. Good luck!
scary that they did not wipe it to Department of Defense standards which I believe is wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it.
That's nearly right. The actual procedure is to wipe it to DoD standards, and then load it up with fake documents.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Or are these types of stories probably sponsored by E-Bay's PR department..
:D
:D:D
Just think of all those people now bidding on old hard drives now... Probably won't be able to pick one up for under £99 by the end of the week
That reminds me... Got a few old ones to sell myself...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
It's finally time to start up my competitor to the NSA. The American Security Service (acronym to be determined) will, for the cost of hard drives on ebay (as well as some key other components... you never know what might be hidden in all those GPUs... we'd better test them. And those CPUs... and that RAM... and those computer games...), provide quality security and defense against our enemies. Especially if those enemies happen to be in the games I'm playing at the time.
DISCLAIMER: I am very rarely serious. If the above comment seems asinine makes no sense, it is most likely a bad joke.
First part of story. scary that they did not wipe it to Department of Defense standards which I believe is wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it.
I just had a mental image of a private being assigned a sharpie and a room full of hard drives, furiously writing 1010 on each one.
wiping the whole disk and then writing 1010 all over it.
Did exactly that. Removed it from a computer. Wiped all over the disk. Then took a marker and wrote all over it. For additional security, wiped it *again* to remove the marker. And you nuts are still claiming there's secrets on it...
</fiction>
A++++++++++++ service! Quick shipping, and free military secrets included! Would buy from again.
Your comment is so fat it was... oh ... no, wrong joke.
The problem with writing 1010 all over the disk is that it only covers an extremely tiny fraction of the disk. Most modern drives are much larger than 4 bits.
It is also highly inefficient since the OS would always have to read a whole sector (typically 512 bytes) and modify it in memory before writing it back again to avoid changing any bits outside of those 4 that are to be wiped!
So, why not just sell it on eBay and hope the buyer wipes the disk before using it?
I created the secure wiping policy for my department. It involves an axe. I get to use it on anyone who tries selling old drives instead of having them shredded.
No, there is a probability that the random data is the same as the original. Would you take that chance?
Aww, you just went for a cheap laugh.
When you said The American Security Service (acronym to be determined) I thought for sure, you were going to start a wiping service!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
the five-sided building
...most buildings have a roof and 4 walls, so that doesn't exactly narrow it down.
My webcomic
?? why would sandblasting an intern help in wiping the disk?
Fire is best and most useful but other methods are possible.
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
It's a slap in the face to any legitimate data recovery business to be "challenged" like that.
But I thought a slap in the face was the proper way to announce your challenge!
What if you had memory issues with your brain and thus have a prosthetic memory installed to help you?
What if the aliens came, and took you back to your home planet?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
link please
I'm so sorry I got caught speaking English. Next time I'll try to translate into nerd-speak so that those of you with slide whistles in your assholes will pipe down.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"