Self-Wiping Hard Drives From Toshiba

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Self-Wiping Hard Drives From Toshiba

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday April 13, 2011 @05:17AM from the clean-slate dept.

Orome1 writes "Toshiba announced a family of self-encrypting hard disk drives engineered to automatically invalidate protected data when connected to an unknown host. Data invalidation attributes can be set for multiple data ranges, enabling targeted data in the drive to be rendered indecipherable by command, on power cycle, or on host authentication error."

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Law enforcement... by The+MAZZTer · 2011-04-13 05:19 · Score: 2

...is going to love these.
1. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:22 · Score: 0
  
  Pft, as if law enforcement would care. They could seize the entire original computer!
2. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I guarantee there is a or backdoor master key that will allow law enforcement to access the drive.
3. Re:Law enforcement... by arcctgx · 2011-04-13 05:26 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Confiscate the computer with a self-encrypting HDD. Boot a live CD, image the HDD. Analyse the image.
  Or am I missing the point?
4. Re:Law enforcement... by lostchicken · 2011-04-13 05:36 · Score: 2
  
  There are very strict rules of evidence that require you to PROVE that you didn't tamper with data. Mounting a disk read/write certainly violates those rules. Attaching the disk to a computer that CAN mount the disk read/write (as opposed to using a hardware write blocker) probably violates them.
  
  --
  -twb
5. Re:Law enforcement... by Hatta · 2011-04-13 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Law Enforcement is going to have a master key. They ARE going to love these.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
6. Re:Law enforcement... by steelfood · 2011-04-13 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  The HDD wipes the moment you turn the power on and it finds something different with your system's configuration. There won't be an opportuity to image it.
  Of course, since this is done in hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if law enforcement has a skeleton key.
  
  --
  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
7. Re:Law enforcement... by kiehlster · 2011-04-13 05:45 · Score: 2
  
  I see Toshiba HDD controllers in the near future that circumvent the protection handed over to law enforcement, and 1-2 days after the release, some hacker is going to find a way to bypass the circuitry/firmware and/or force it to wipe on circumventing hardware.
8. Re:Law enforcement... by Jawnn · 2011-04-13 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  As has been observed already, "the authorities" will almost certainly be given a "master key", so the question is, why would anyone who fears having the authorities see what is on their hard drive depend on this technology? Next question: Why would anyone who really cares about security use a device for which there is a known back door?
  
  The illusion of security is arguably worse then no security at all.
9. Re:Law enforcement... by RooftopActivity · 2011-04-13 06:06 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, except the primary reason for this design isn't to protect your data from law enforcement: rather to protect the idiots from themselves.
  This feature aims to protect your data when your ex hard drive finds itself on Ebay, or being picked up from the local recycling centre.
10. Re:Law enforcement... by The+MAZZTer · 2011-04-13 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Even if the system sees the disk as read-only, the drive itself can do whatever it wants as long as its powered.
11. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:08 · Score: 0
  
  Take it to a clean lab, remove the platters and read them with whatever forensic device they use. Completely bypasses any wiping mechanism baked into the control board.
12. Re:Law enforcement... by geekmux · 2011-04-13 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  I guarantee there is a or backdoor master key that will allow law enforcement to access the drive.
  The difference between "law enforcement" and the NSA is several orders of magnitude when it comes to "backdoor" anything.
  My point here is the only "backdoor" keys (IF there really are any) are going to be closely held secrets within certain agencies, not for any person with a badge to have access to. Otherwise, you would leave no room for the lawyers to generate "revenue" bitching back and forth about encrypted data and user rights.
13. Re:Law enforcement... by geekmux · 2011-04-13 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  Confiscate the computer with a self-encrypting HDD. Boot a live CD, image the HDD. Analyse the image.
  Or am I missing the point?
  Uh, analyze what exactly? A 250GB encrypted "file"? Hardware encryption should live well below what any LiveCD or cloning software is capable of viewing, otherwise, there would be no point in selling this as a viable product if it were THAT easy to circumvent.
14. Re:Law enforcement... by Lumpy · 2011-04-13 06:10 · Score: 2
  
  Which makes truecrypt your friend. Cant backdoor that one....
  well they can have big bubba in cellblock 5 backdoor the key out of you.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
15. Re:Law enforcement... by tmosley · 2011-04-13 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, that's not expensive.
16. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:34 · Score: 0
  
  Right, just to find that the disk has second layer encrypted by some software.
  Anyone still think those who have something really important will rely systems without defence in depth? Boooo, shame on you!
17. Re:Law enforcement... by mlts · 2011-04-13 06:40 · Score: 2
  
  That is true, as a forensics professional. Strict rules of police work apply in the business, and they make sense. For example, if someone does not use a hardware write blocker to copy the drive to an image, then performs study only on that image, the case is pretty much screwed up.
  However, where the rubber meets the road is in front of a jury of people who likely have little clue, nor really care about official P&P. They have zero interest that a forensics officer failed to use a hardware write blocker to pull data from a drive. Instead of jurors hearing "this disk was seized and was booted read/write with files changed after it was taken", the jury will hear "blahblahblahblah", rubber stamp a guilty verdict, then head to the nearest watering hole for some Duff Light from the tap to talk to their friends about putting some "evil hacker" behind bars.
18. Re:Law enforcement... by Capt.DrumkenBum · 2011-04-13 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  The answer to all of your questions is the same. People are stupid.
  
  --
  If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
19. Re:Law enforcement... by Slashdot+Parent · 2011-04-13 06:55 · Score: 2
  
  However, where the rubber meets the road is in front of a jury of people who likely have little clue, nor really care about official P&P.
  My understanding is that a jury will never see evidence that was obtained through improper procedures. When the system functions as intended, the judge would bar improperly-obtained evidence from being presented at trial.
  
  --
  They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
20. Re:Law enforcement... by PopeRatzo · 2011-04-13 06:59 · Score: 1
  
  Mounting a disk read/write certainly violates those rules.
  If they cared about "rules" we wouldn't be worried about protecting our data from them.
  The only kind of "self-destruct" apparatus I would trust is the one I apply myself. Anything that might have keys that are escrowed is useless when it comes to peace of mind.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
21. Re:Law enforcement... by AJH16 · 2011-04-13 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  Except all you have to do is open it up in a clean room and pull out the platters to defeat the self-wiping behavior. It might be able to wipe out the keystore, but that assumes there isn't a way to break the encryption already available.
  
  --
  AJ Henderson
22. Re:Law enforcement... by mlts · 2011-04-13 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  I more likely will see a hacker, or perhaps an employee selling the ability on the black market.
  This would be a nice bonus for thieves and industrial/national espionage professionals. While someone is staying and enjoying the Elbonian hospitality, their intel agents can pull the HDD out of the laptop, attach a specialized controller that has this protection disabled, dump the data, and then slide it back in, and nobody would notice.
  I'm less worried about LEOs getting access to data than thieves. The market for stolen data has grown, and it is about to enter its infancy. It is only a matter of time before fences start using a bogus controller like this to dump data out of a laptop. This then would be sold to clearinghouses, or to local thugs to find victims to case out for burglary, kidnapping, blackmail, or home invasions.
23. Re:Law enforcement... by ls671 · 2011-04-13 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Just make sure to do some backups in case "it" decides to protect yourself at random due to some malfunctions, or for example, a CPU upgrade etc. where the drive decides it needs to protect you...
  
  --
  Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
24. Re:Law enforcement... by AVee · 2011-04-13 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  Changes are you don't even have to remove the platters, I think there's a huge change this is going to be an existing harddisk with a different controller. Just swapping the controller with a standard one will probably just work (although the content will still be encrypted). I'd also be curious how it will detect it's in a different machine, changes are it's not too hard to spoof whatever it uses to identify the host.
25. Re:Law enforcement... by meerling · 2011-04-13 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  Except the more people that have access to something like that, the more likely it is to get loose. On top of that, it appears as though cell phones have a backdoor key as well. This was determined by a university group that tried to crack the encryption, and the way and speed it broke lead them to conclude that there is a common key to all of them. They assumed it was instituted by 'law enforcement' to make it easy for them to crack the phones. After all, if you already have half the key, it becomes many orders of magnitude easier and faster to crack.
  
  Of course, with the abuses regularly commuted by our various 'law enforcement' agencies, do you really trust them with anything?
26. Re:Law enforcement... by schwit1 · 2011-04-13 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  What platters? I see a stock image of a hard drive, but do we know it is not SSD?
27. Re:Law enforcement... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-04-13 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  What makes you think that?
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
28. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 09:00 · Score: 0
  
  What platters? I see a stock image of a hard drive, but do we know it is not SSD?
  It's even more easy with a SSD.
29. Re:Law enforcement... by Arancaytar · 2011-04-13 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Without RTFA, I'm inferring that "host authentication" will identify not just the hardware but also the system, such that a live system will fail to authenticate.
  But without actual hardware-based booby-traps (like Dan Brown-style acid vials inside the HDD casing, or a dead-man's-switch that destroys all data on shut-down), the drive should still be vulnerable to being taken apart and each platter imaged optically.
30. Re:Law enforcement... by Hatta · 2011-04-13 09:04 · Score: 1
  
  Even if they don't, it's a realistic possibility. So to be secure, you have to assume they do.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
31. Re:Law enforcement... by Totenglocke · 2011-04-13 09:16 · Score: 2
  
  You only use truecrypt? I use 7zip to compress and encrypt it, store that in a truecrypt volume, then compress and encrypt THAT before moving it to another truecrypt volume. Sure it takes some time to access files and it involves remembering four complex passwords, but goddamit I'm secure! ....STOP STARING AT MY TINFOIL HAT!
  
  --
  "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
32. Re:Law enforcement... by Totenglocke · 2011-04-13 09:19 · Score: 1
  
  There's another type of drive similar to this, only it wipes itself if power is ever cut. Sure, law enforcement count swipe the computer, but odds are they'd turn it off before taking it.
  
  --
  "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
33. Re:Law enforcement... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-04-13 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  If it exists, then the product is worhless; why would toshiba even bother?
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
34. Re:Law enforcement... by h4rm0ny · 2011-04-13 09:22 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, with the abuses regularly commuted by our various 'law enforcement' agencies, do you really trust them with anything?
  The only people I trust less than law enforcement, are the people who do trust law enforcement.
  
  --
  
  Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
35. Re:Law enforcement... by PitaBred · 2011-04-13 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  The typical mode of operation is for law enforcement to take a drive out and put it in a device that allows read-only communication and copy the drive to a working copy for analysis. A drive that wipes itself when connected to something like that would be pretty damn annoying to law enforcement... they don't power up computers because it's almost trivially easy to put a "timebomb" on your machine that if you don't turn it off within X amount of time after boot it will wipe your drive.
  
  --
  My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
36. Re:Law enforcement... by h4rm0ny · 2011-04-13 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  So obvious question is how likely is it that the thieves will catch on that it's a special drive before it's too late. So long as Toshiba don't stick a great big label on it reading "Super-Secure Self-Erasing Drive", there's a good chance this drive will work as intended, isn't there?
  
  --
  
  Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
37. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 09:31 · Score: 0
  
  There are devices that will let law enforcement sieze a computer without turning it off, basically using a UPS to power the computer as it's being moved. The device linked is designed to facilitate the uninterrupted transition between wall power and UPS power. It does this using a "jackass trick" which makes a male power plug hot.
  The same company also sells a far simpler device, basically a "fake USB mouse" which will send out random mouse movement to prevent any password protection screensaver or similar from kicking in.
  It is probably possible to detect and counteract this kind of stuff too. For example many hard drives already contain accelerometers, using them to detect when a computer is being moved is a simple matter of software (or firmware). Of course then you get into another arms race - you get to either transport the siezed computer very very carefully as to not trigger the sensor, or you might just as well have the computer forensics come out on site to do their work. To counteract that there could be some kind of timeout, requiring a password to be entered at least every N hours or the computer wipes itself. Although that would mean either getting up several times at night or having a uselessly long timeout. Although that could likely be counteracted by messing with the clock frequency on the motherboard. Oh, but that's counteracted by an intrusion detection in the chassis itself (already commonly found especially in OEM computers)... if not it's trivial to make one).
  The list goes on and on and on. This will always be an arms race. But in the end, security is no stronger than the weakest link. Although $5 wrench cryptanalysis can be mitigated by things like "duress passwords" - a fake password that you give the cops which will either boot a hidden OS like in TrueCrypt (if you ever actually boot that mounting the filesystem writable, my understanding is that you're going to hose the "other" filesystem in there) or a password that will simply wipe the drive if used.
  Tl;dr version: Security is hard.
38. Re:Law enforcement... by lennier · 2011-04-13 09:34 · Score: 1
  
  If it exists, then the product is worhless; why would toshiba even bother?
  Because even if a product is worthless, if you can lie well enough and run fast enough you can sell it to anyone?
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
39. Re:Law enforcement... by WankerWeasel · 2011-04-13 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  You apparently don't know how computer forensics works nor how the legal system works. This is perfectly allowable and happens all the time in the current system. Live forensics is growing and is perfectly admissible under current laws and practices. If you do make changes to the suspect data, you're fine as long as you can show what those changes were (such as showing the registry entries changed/added by inserting a USB drive to run a live forensic tool on the suspect's live system).
40. Re:Law enforcement... by Hognoxious · 2011-04-13 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  You don't have to run very fast at all to get away from someone who's behind twenty feet of barbed wire.
  It's like parachutes. When they don't work, you don't get the customers bringing them back for a refund.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
41. Re:Law enforcement... by morethanapapercert · 2011-04-13 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  Better yet, they can seize the entire computer and move it to their lab without powering it down using Hotplug
  All you need to do then is add a SATA based HDD or tape drive and do a dd or similar command using the appropriate write only switches.
  
  --
  I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
42. Re:Law enforcement... by Fjandr · 2011-04-13 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  If there is, its use will happen extraordinarily selectively. As soon as a high-profile target has the information on one of these drives used against them, it will become known to the public. Unless, of course, it's used in a secret trial where they aren't allowed to see the evidence being used against them.
43. Re:Law enforcement... by Kittenman · 2011-04-13 13:19 · Score: 1
  
  You only use truecrypt?
  
  Heck, I find a hammer works best. Whenever I toss out a HDD, it's obsolete. And I set my teenage daughter onto it with hammer and (optionally) a nail. She loses some aggression, I sleep easier. And if anyone replies and says "it's still readable", then
  a) My life isn't really that interesting to anyone but me
  b) Whoever wants to go through all that trouble is welcome to find out how dull I really am.
  
  --
  "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
44. Re:Law enforcement... by poptones · 2011-04-13 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  You gotta lotta trust in the system. The rubber hose isn't that difficult, especially in the US.
  Someone sees something, you are found downloading something or are a member of some nefarious group. So, You are arrested. Everyone sees you do the perp walk on tv.
  The press has already convicted you. Have you EVER seen someone who did that perp walk months ago be cleared on TV? No. The cameras are never there when you go free unless you are a (possibly formerly) loved celebrity.
  All your electronic shit is taken as possible evidence. Your family knows about your arrest. Your wife leaves you, your kids hate you because they are tormented in school for the shit their dad "did."
  Evidence is found but it is "tainted" so it can't be used in court.
  Whoopee. Your life is so miserable they offer you a plea. If you fight then you will be locked in jail (or, if you're lucky, out on bail) for a year or more while you await trial. Meanwhile the prosecutor constantly pressures you with subtle hints about what they have found on your computer. You have no freedom, they can question you every week if they want.
  Not being able to submit evidence in court does NOT mean it cannot be used to pressure you into admitting what you have done. They don't even have to tell you the truth - they only are obligated to tell the court the truth.
  So, encryption or not, you cop a plea. Done.
45. Re:Law enforcement... by Joce640k · 2011-04-13 14:23 · Score: 2
  
  Nope. It doesn't wipe the platters, it wipes the encryption key from the controller.
  Removing the encrypted platters won't help you.
  
  --
  No sig today...
46. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 14:25 · Score: 0
  
  Backtrack 4 in forensics mode anyone?
47. Re:Law enforcement... by Joce640k · 2011-04-13 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  Why would it wipe the platters? They're encrypted and it would take an hour or so to complete...
  FTB.
  
  --
  No sig today...
48. Re:Law enforcement... by WorBlux · 2011-04-13 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  Hardware key-logger, modified BIOS, stealing whatever scrap of paper you wrote the key down on.
49. Re:Law enforcement... by the_other_chewey · 2011-04-13 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  But without actual hardware-based booby-traps (like Dan Brown-style acid vials inside the HDD casing, or a dead-man's-switch that destroys all data on shut-down), the drive should still be vulnerable to being taken apart and each platter imaged optically.
  At today's data densities, this is bloody expensive and takes ages for anything
  over a couple of kilobytes. And then you have some kilobytes of encrypted data.
  Big deal.
50. Re:Law enforcement... by Zomalaja · 2011-04-13 15:33 · Score: 1
  
  The drives are self-encrypting also, so moving the platters still leaves you with no useful data.
51. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 16:01 · Score: 0
  
  mind evilmaid usbattack on truecrypt
52. Re:Law enforcement... by wvmarle · 2011-04-13 16:16 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on how the "host authentication" part works.,
  Hardware only, or with an additional key that's stored in the host's OS, possibly on a different drive in the same computer?
53. Re:Law enforcement... by Macgrrl · 2011-04-13 16:17 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you have redundant UPSes...
  We lose power just long enough for my desktop to power down every couple of weeks atm.
  Note to self - the UPS in the study really REALLY needs replacing now.
  
  --
  Sara
  Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
54. Re:Law enforcement... by tftp · 2011-04-13 16:53 · Score: 1
  
  Why would anyone who really cares about security use a device for which there is a known back door?
  There are many companies that are legally required to protect the data. Thieves won't be able to decrypt anything, and the government already has access to the data. Outside of the HIPAA crowd every business would love to have an HDD that can't be stolen and then read on a separate computer. Again, this is not a protection against the government - if the latter wants the data it just sends in the police and takes whatever it pleases.
  So to summarize, only the people who have something to hide from the government will NOT want such a HDD. There could be some users of this type - most notably, political parties (see Watergate,) then individual rebels, and finally criminals. This is a drop in the bucket, compared to all the businesses in the country who would love an extra protection against theft.
55. Re:Law enforcement... by kmoser · 2011-04-13 17:10 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, you actually trust your teenage daughter? So much for security.
56. Re:Law enforcement... by blackpaw · 2011-04-13 17:59 · Score: 1
  
  Yup. 98% of cases in the USA are plea bargained. This is not a justice system that works, or even Justice.
57. Re:Law enforcement... by swilver · 2011-04-13 18:42 · Score: 1
  
  You think too difficult. You could detect it by devices not being reachable because they're disconnected or no longer on your local network (ie, ms ping times). Just wipe the encryption key then, reboot (or active screensaver) and wait for the key to re-entered.
  Although I'm sure you can move a computer plus some components without powering it down, try moving an entire network at once without anything odd being detected.
58. Re:Law enforcement... by swilver · 2011-04-13 18:44 · Score: 1
  
  Just activate screensaver as soon as several local and remote servers show irregularities in their ping times or disappear altogether.
59. Re:Law enforcement... by Threni · 2011-04-13 19:15 · Score: 1
  
  What's tamper got to do with it? If it's a list of criminal associates, evidence about past crimes etc then the hard drive needn't get mentioned in court; it's just more info for the police and their investigation. You'd not use the info to 'prove' people were involved; you'd investigate those people and get proof via phone taps, physical evidence etc.
60. Re:Law enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 19:36 · Score: 0
  
  How about putting the HDD plates on another disk?
61. Re:Law enforcement... by AmiMoJo · 2011-04-13 21:28 · Score: 1
  
  Note that it also mentions that the data can be wiped on authentication failure, i.e. if you enter the wrong password. Not sure how that would play out legally, if say you gave the police the wrong password. Truecrypt offers the best solution to this, allowing you to have one password you can give up that loads a normal OS with some legal but embarrassing pics or something on it and a second password that gets into another secret OS. There is no way to prove the existence of a second password so you can't be convicted for not handing it over. BTW, did I mention that not handing over your password is a crime in the UK?
  I should also point out that I have not used this feature myself and it untested in a court of law...
  About the closest thing you could get to TC from a HDD is a special "instant wipe" password but chances are someone would be able to detect that you had given it to them after the data was wiped, incriminating yourself.
  I can only see this being of use for laptops that are lost/stolen. Even then you have to be careful not to put the laptop to sleep with the encrypted partition unlocked.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
62. Re:Law enforcement... by AmiMoJo · 2011-04-13 21:58 · Score: 1
  
  None of that protects you from an infected OS or hardware keylogger.
  If you really are that paranoid you should get a laptop and remove the keyboard so that you can physically see that there is no keylogger. Some laptops have a cable long enough to raise the keyboard up to see underneath without having to unplug it. Then make sure you use a bootable CD for your OS so it can't be infected with spyware. Of course getting that CD in the first place could be tricky if you can't trust your internet connection as an adversary could do a man-in-the-middle attack and send you a spyware infected ISO.
  Realistically though if you are doing something really dodgy like planning a terrorist attack there will be plenty of physical evidence and the contents of your HDD won't be needed.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
63. Re:Law enforcement... by Journe · 2011-04-13 23:34 · Score: 1
  
  There's another type of drive similar to this, only it wipes itself if power is ever cut. Sure, law enforcement count swipe the computer, but odds are they'd turn it off before taking it.
  ...thank you for making a TBD time period of my life less awesome. I was just waiting for the day the country goes crazy and a revolution goes underground, when we have all our hard drives wired into an incredibly elaborate contraption designed to wipe them with acid if we flip a really big switch and cut the power.
  But you've ruined that. Now all I have to look forward to is looting.
  On topic: TFA didn't seem to mention it, anyone know how easy it would be to screw up something that would kinda fuck the authentication sequence? For instance, a new OS, or is this something built in at the firmware level, something the average end-user wouldn't be able to install?
64. Re:Law enforcement... by hawkinspeter · 2011-04-14 00:16 · Score: 1
  
  What I don't understand is how this is any better than full disk encryption (e.g. LUKS, truecrypt etc).
  
  If you remove a LUKS partition and put it in a different machine, you're not going to be able to get anything from it unless you know the passphrase. Even mounting the platters in a different casing won't help you get around encryption, whereas this design relies on the controller.
  
  Also, encryption allows the user to recover data in case of motherboard failure. I just don't see what the benefit of these drives are.
  
  --
  You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
65. Re:Law enforcement... by Lumpy · 2011-04-14 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  Amateur....
  Step 1 buy a lockable laptop that you can be sure is safe... Panasonic toughbooks can lock closed.
  step 2 download the source code to Linux, Xorg, and the GCC c compile and read every line carefully to look for back doors.
  Step 3 build by hand a OS that will let the GCC compiler run and compile linux.
  step 4 build by hand your filesystem to get your hand built linux kernel to run. ... ... ...
  8 years later.... you now have a working Computer that is 100% safe, now you need to download truecrypt soruce and inspect this before compiling... Oh wait, you need to update GCC, start over at step 2.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
66. Re:Law enforcement... by tibit · 2011-04-14 09:21 · Score: 1
  
  Thus defeating the mouse wiggler ;)
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
67. Re:Law enforcement... by AmiMoJo · 2011-04-14 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  How do you know the GCC compiler you use to build the source you downloaded in step 2 isn't trojaned? Compile it by hand into machine code?
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
68. Re:Law enforcement... by RockDoctor · 2011-04-14 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  I guarantee there is a or backdoor master key that will allow law enforcement to access the drive.
  And since the press release is on the "toshiba.com" (i.e., US) website, and refers to "NIST"-approved practices (i.e. US NSA approved, therefore US-spooks readable), I think that your suspicion is well-founded.
  I'll stick to using non-corporate, non-US encryption, thanks.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
69. Re:Law enforcement... by wiedzmin · 2011-04-14 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  There's another type of drive similar to this, only it wipes itself if power is ever cut. Sure, law enforcement count swipe the computer, but odds are they'd turn it off before taking it.
  "Wipes" itself how? With a large magnet or a hammer? Because I doubt that it will be able to write itself with random data 5-7 passes, if it has no power. What's to prevent someone from "unformatting" it?
  
  Question I have is - who wants to lose their data every time TSA decides to "inspect" their laptop and tries to clone their drive?
  
  --
  Bow before me, for I am root.
70. Re:Law enforcement... by rishabhd · 2011-04-14 20:36 · Score: 1
  
  Epic :)
  
  --
  I blog about breaking computers at Pro Hack
71. Re:Law enforcement... by CrystalFalcon · 2011-04-15 23:24 · Score: 1
  
  THIS should have been a day for mod points. Magnitudes of mod points.
72. Re:Law enforcement... by cbiltcliffe · 2011-04-16 00:10 · Score: 1
  
  Truecrypt offers the best solution to this, allowing you to have one password you can give up that loads a normal OS with some legal but embarrassing pics or something on it and a second password that gets into another secret OS. There is no way to prove the existence of a second password so you can't be convicted for not handing it over.
  The only problem with this that I've found is that both encrypted and hidden OS must be the same OS, and I think - although I don't remember for sure - both have to be Windows. So you can't have an encrypted Windows XP and a hidden FreeBSD, for instance, or even a hidden Windows XP on encrypted Windows 7.
  I'm working on an experiment right now that may allow hidden *nix on encrypted Windows, but I haven't finished messing around yet, so I don't know if it'll work.
  
  --
  "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
73. Re:Law enforcement... by h4rm0ny · 2011-04-16 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Well the only modding seems to have been a -1 so I guess not everyone feels that way. You have my permission to sig it if you like. ;) :D
  
  Cheers,
  H.
  
  --
  
  Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
74. Re:Law enforcement... by AmiMoJo · 2011-04-16 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  The two OSs do not need to be the same, you can have say one XP and one Windows 7 without problems. I don't know about Linux support. There is a small caveat that if the partition with the hidden OS on it is formatted to NTFS it limits the hidden OS to half the size of said partition, but I don't see that as being a major problem.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
TrueCrypt by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:20 · Score: 1

Sounds too error prone for me, thanks.
I'll stick with TrueCrypt.
Then I don't have to worry about trying to move the HDD between computers.
1. Re:TrueCrypt by Ruprecht+the+Monkeyb · 2011-04-13 05:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  TrueCrypt is great in most circumstances. But if you need (for example) FIPS140-2 compliance, you' need something more.
2. Re:TrueCrypt by jittles · 2011-04-13 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  I think this is an ideal solution for the military, for instance. Right now, they use PCMCIA cards to store mission data, encryption codes, and other such things on aircraft. When one hits the master zeroize switch, it actually toasts the cards to try and render them unusable. This would provide additional security, in case the crew members do not survive long enough to wipe everything themselves.
3. Re:TrueCrypt by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:19 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  TrueCrypt is FIPS140-2 compliant, it just isn't certified as such. No one has yet volunteered to pay for it and it would be a recurring expense for every released version. Such a thing is generally unreasonable for an open source project unless it is sponsored by an interested third party.
  It is much the same situation as the Single UNIX Specification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification). There are only a few OSes that can call themselves certified UNIX, but there are hundreds if not thousands of open source projects that qualify. The problems are funding and release cycles, not compliance.
4. Re:TrueCrypt by jshackney · 2011-04-13 07:11 · Score: 1
  
  Wow! I genuinely thought I was the last person on Earth still using PCMCIA.
5. Re:TrueCrypt by Ruprecht+the+Monkeyb · 2011-04-13 07:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I absolutely concur. However, when the government won't give you an ATO unless the product is certified, you've got no choice.
6. Re:TrueCrypt by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-14 00:35 · Score: 0
  
  I wonder if certifying snapshots, or releases using taxpayer money would be a good investment. They only need to certify the cryptographic portions of the code. If commonly used modules would be certified, large amount of dependent software would be certified by default for many purposes, thanks to the open source model.
What... by MrEricSir · 2011-04-13 05:21 · Score: 1

...could possibly go wrong?

--
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
1. Re:What... by 0racle · 2011-04-13 05:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nothing at all, except a motherboard failure now means you lost all your data.
  
  --
  "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
2. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  Which is fine, if the harm of either losing control of access to your data or being caught with it is more than losing your data.
3. Re:What... by bwayne314 · 2011-04-13 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you back up to some other device - hopefully with similar protections.
4. Re:What... by gsslay · 2011-04-13 05:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  No you haven't. Your data is still there. Just don't be doing anything foolish like trying to access it.
5. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:30 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Finally, Write-Only Memory becomes mainstream.
6. Re:What... by pmsr · 2011-04-13 05:30 · Score: 2
  
  As someone who recently say a big raid array failing spectacularly and taking data with it because of a firmware bug on the disks themselves, can say that nothing will go wrong. This has success written all over it.
7. Re:What... by BitZtream · 2011-04-13 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  You had multiple disk corruption due to a common firmware bug on the drives themselves? That seems like its going to be pretty damn rare.
  Now if you had a single drive failure and it took our your stripped, non-redundant array, then thats not really a big shocker is it?
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
8. Re:What... by vlm · 2011-04-13 05:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  You had multiple disk corruption due to a common firmware bug on the drives themselves? That seems like its going to be pretty damn rare.
  Happens all the time because most RAID builders buy all their drives in one order from the same vendor. Heck they probably have sequential serial numbers. If there is a bug, they're going to totally lose that array because it'll hit all the drives.
  Let me guess, about a year ago or a bit more, he bought a set of Maxstor 541DX, Fireball 3, or DiamondMax Plus 8, the defect lists slowly started filling up, one drive finally failed outright, then during the restore/rebuild process multiple drives also failed because their defect lists filled up during the restoration, then the drive firmware literally crashed on the next boot leaving you with nothing at all but a set of paperweights that don't even show up in the BIOS list? Mmmm, just guessing?
  Always better off buying RAID drives from different vendors at different times, if you can.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
9. Re:What... by magarity · 2011-04-13 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry, the 'on command' wipe has a pop up window that asks "are you sure you want to wipe the drive? [(OK)]"
10. Re:What... by JonySuede · 2011-04-13 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  Heck they probably have sequential serial numbers.
  I learned that the hard way. But happily I also learned that I was as emotionally attached to my data as I thought I was.
  
  --
  Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
11. Re:What... by russotto · 2011-04-13 06:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Unless you back up to some other device - hopefully with similar protections.
  Or different but better protections. For instance, a drive like this might be in a remote office in China, whereas the backup (or the source of the data) is in some secure location in your home country.
12. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:41 · Score: 0
  
  Backups?
13. Re:What... by lgw · 2011-04-13 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  Ahh, now my designs to mount a specialized file system under dev/null will finally pay off!
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
14. Re:What... by Albanach · 2011-04-13 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  I learned that the hard way. But happily I also learned that I was as emotionally attached to my data as I thought I was.
  A useful reminder that, despite what many hope, there's no B for Backup in RAID.
15. Re:What... by aynoknman · 2011-04-13 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  I learned that the hard way. But happily I also learned that I was as emotionally attached to my data as I thought I was.
  A useful reminder that, despite what many hope, there's no B for Backup in RAID.
  You would be looking for a RABID setup? Try selling that.
  
  --
  We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
16. Re:What... by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · 2011-04-13 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  This is quite right. I read about the following scenario which did not involve a bug of any kind but simple hardware failure. Experienced IT guy sets up a 3 disk RAID array at home. Drive 1 fails. No problem. He's got replacement drives and the array can work with 2 drives. While drive 1 is replaced and rebuilding, drive 2 fails. The array is toast. All data is lost. Drives 1 and 2 were by the same manufacturer and purchased at the same time. The only thing that saved him was that he had backed up most of his data to one of those sites that offers what I guess you could call "backups in the clouds" and while he had some minor issues restoring from that, it did indeed work and he got back the stuff he copied there. He said that he never considered at setup that 2 disk drives might fail at the same time (or close enough together to take down the array like in his case), but as he thought about it after the fact, he realized that it made perfect sense given that the drives were from the same manufacturer and were originally installed at the same time. He said his plan after he got the array rebuilt was to just regularly replace drives prior to indications of failure as once he started getting the warning messages from the drives themselves, it was already too late.
17. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:56 · Score: 0
  
  arm... /dev/null was there for quite some time and didn't require any special hardware?
18. Re:What... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-04-13 08:55 · Score: 1
  
  But you said he was an experienced IT guy - he should expect that sort of thing.
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
19. Re:What... by guruevi · 2011-04-13 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  RAID is not there to protect anyone from data loss, it doesn't matter if you buy the disks at different times from different countries or let dwarven blacksmiths cast you a new mythril case for it.
  RAID is there for:
  1) Better performance
  -or-
  1) More continuous drive space
  2) Potentially less downtime on the occasional 1 (or 2 if you're using RAID6) disk failure.
  3) Potentially a higher MTTDL (Mean Time To Data Loss)
  RAID is NOT there for:
  1) Backup (a mirror, even geographically distanced is not a backup)
  2) Protection against bit rot and corruption (although ZFS and certain controllers can mitigate a lot of it)
  3) Protection against Catastrophic Failure
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
20. Re:What... by couchslug · 2011-04-13 09:09 · Score: 1
  
  "Nothing at all, except a motherboard failure now means you lost all your data."
  If I'm too stupid to back up important data then I deserve to suffer.
  
  --
  "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
21. Re:What... by vlm · 2011-04-13 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  He said that he never considered at setup that 2 disk drives might fail at the same time
  Two funniest failures I ever saw, in a gallows humor kind of way, one where the guy had a QUAD REDUNDANT power supply (all on the same power strip of course ) and lightning vaporized all his drives and of course all four supplies. He had backups, and a contract for 4 hour replacement on demand of ALL the drives, but some bean counter decided he didn't really need power supply coverage from the manufacturer. How often do power supplies fail, and after all we coughed up the dough for quad redundant supplies... Multi day downtime. These were external SCSI...
  The other one was the array where the cooling system in the closet failed over the weekend, and the first to die, of course, was the monitoring / paging system. Pagers were nice and quiet... Then all the drives simultaneously overheated and permanently burned out. All of them more or less simultaneously. Supposedly the first tech on the scene reported the hardware was hot enough for 1st degree burns (reddened skin for days) but not hot enough to raise blisters.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
22. Re:What... by vlm · 2011-04-13 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  RAID is not there to protect anyone from data loss
  
  2) Potentially less downtime on the occasional 1 (or 2 if you're using RAID6) disk failure.
  3) Potentially a higher MTTDL (Mean Time To Data Loss)
  Well, pick one or the other not both sides of the argument. Its a perfectly good strategy to protect against loss. Obviously not a magic bullet but it certainly works.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
23. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 09:27 · Score: 0
  
  WHATEVER. /dev/null has been available on *nix for YEARS.
24. Re:What... by lennier · 2011-04-13 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  "Nothing at all, except a motherboard failure now means you lost all your data."
  If I'm too stupid to back up important data then I deserve to suffer.
  But of course you'll be too smart to accidentally expose your backups in cleartext, and being illegal Blu-Rays they'll be too big to fit on tape anyway, so you'll want to store backups securely by copying them to an identical secure hard drive, so that when your motherboard dies you just plug in the new one and.... oops.
  Absolutely secure hardware-backed encryption is a great solution for data for which the cost to your organisation if you lose that data is zero.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
25. Re:What... by h4rm0ny · 2011-04-13 09:42 · Score: 1
  
  Well, he's experienced now.
  
  --
  
  Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
26. Re:What... by lennier · 2011-04-13 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  You would be looking for a RABID setup? Try selling that.
  It interoperates well with a Write/Erase/Allocation/Search Enterprise Logistics Server.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
27. Re:What... by lennier · 2011-04-13 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  happily I also learned that I was as emotionally attached to my data as I thought I was
  I'm so, so sorry for your loss.
  I know the pain never goes away. But in time... you can learn to focus that pain into a white-hot laser of bitter revenge.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
28. Re:What... by JonySuede · 2011-04-13 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  sorry for your sorriness (you must from an ex British colony to)
  I meant : But happily I also learned that I was less emotionally attached to my data as I thought I was.
  
  --
  Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
29. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 10:41 · Score: 0
  
  Absolutely secure hardware-backed encryption is a great solution for data for which the cost to your organisation if you lose that data is less than the cost to your organisation if that data gets out.
  FTFY
30. Re:What... by Idarubicin · 2011-04-13 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  Nothing at all, except a motherboard failure now means you lost all your data.
  You might as well say that we shouldn't use hard drives, because after all, "a hard drive failure now means you lost all your data".
  Why does security-conscious storage prevent you from keeping backups? Whether you're dealing with system administration or handguns, idiots with powerful tools will always be able to shoot themselves in the foot.
  
  --
  ~Idarubicin
31. Re:What... by lennier · 2011-04-13 13:40 · Score: 1
  
  for which the cost to your organisation if you lose that data is less than the cost to your organisation if that data gets out.
  Yes, quite.
  It's useful for information that would be damaging if it were ever revealed to others, but that isn't really useful in itself, for you.
  That seems like quite a small class of information to me.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
32. Re:What... by lennier · 2011-04-13 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  Why does security-conscious storage prevent you from keeping backups?
  
  Because backups, kind of by definition, to be useful have to exist in multiple platform-independent copies and those copies must be unsecured. They certainly have to be a lot less "secure" than the kind of rabid self-destroying hard drive in the article.
  And to keep your backups safe from loss, you need to store them offsite. Usually in a third party company. So the smart thief/spy can always attack your unencrypted (or far less-encrypted) backup storage, not your "secure" primary hard drive.
  The better you secure your data against loss, the harder it is to secure it against copying, and vice versa.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
33. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 14:11 · Score: 0
  
  ROFLMFAO!!!
34. Re:What... by poptones · 2011-04-13 14:16 · Score: 1
  
  I use a raid. Seems logical (bad pun intended) you could use several of these locked to the same tpm. Now "a hard drive failure" doesn't cause loss of data.
35. Re:What... by poptones · 2011-04-13 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  Data loss is how I am able to sustain my compulsion to collect...
36. Re:What... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 16:07 · Score: 0
  
  Always thought the same about smoke dectors.
37. Re:What... by Lunzo · 2011-04-13 17:07 · Score: 1
  
  This is a hardware /dev/null. Think how much quicker it will be.
38. Re:What... by tibit · 2011-04-14 09:33 · Score: 1
  
  Who the fuck designs hard drives that won't spin down when they are too hot? Every spinning platter hard drive in production has, AFAIK, a built-in temp sensor. What's wrong with using it to protect itself?
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:22 · Score: 1

In Soviet Russia drive wipes you.
How much is the LEO host? by hsmith · 2011-04-13 05:25 · Score: 0

I mean, of course they wouldnt offer a backdoor solution to law enforcement agencies, nah.
1. Re:How much is the LEO host? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:32 · Score: 0
  
  Why would they? I don't believe there's any legal requirement to, and it would introduce a severe vulnerability if the key was ever leaked.
  This sounds like excessive paranoia. Oddly, from looking at this summary, it seems that about 20% of the population of slashdot suffers from it.
2. Re:How much is the LEO host? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 10:50 · Score: 0
  
  The vendor of the HDD doesn't have to bother. If it gets popular enough, some enterprising company will just break the almost certainly weak key management and sell the crack to the .gov's of the world
3. Re:How much is the LEO host? by chocapix · 2011-04-14 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  It's pretty expensive. Millions of dollars. And unless you're okay with several hours of downtime every day, you want a GEO host which is even more expensive.
  Have you considered simply keeping the hard drive on earth?
Too bad this wasn't from Hitachi by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:26 · Score: 0

A Deskstar drive could clean up after itself after sh!tting the bed...
1. Re:Too bad this wasn't from Hitachi by herojig · 2011-04-13 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  It would of course be branded the DeathStar.
  
  --
  I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
2. Re:Too bad this wasn't from Hitachi by Local+ID10T · 2011-04-13 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  It would of course be branded the DeathStar.
  I'd buy it, if it were.
  
  --
  "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

This one is way cooler.
It actually releases acid into the hard-drive platters:
http://www.deadondemand.com/products/enhancedhdd
If they've implemented this properly then you could send a remote command wirelessly that would wipe the hard-drive.
I'm pretty sure this is a forensic investigators nightmare...
1. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Gordonjcp · 2011-04-13 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  I suppose dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda does take quite a while on larger drives...
2. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by BitZtream · 2011-04-13 05:36 · Score: 0
  
  Its also possible to recover data from a drive after writing zeros to it just one time. Its going to cost enough to be cost prohibitive in most cases, but its not impossible to pull off, of course its also not very reliable to get useful data out of it either.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
3. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Hatta · 2011-04-13 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  It might have been possible in the early days of hard disks, but not anymore. Data is just packed too densely. Think about it, if there was room for new data and old data to exist on one disk, then you've just doubled the capacity of your hard disk. If that were possible, hard disk makers would be advertising the increased capacity.
  If you still believe the myth, I'd encourage you to find one instance of data being read off of a zeroed drive in the past 10 years.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
4. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:43 · Score: 0
  
  God dammit, no it isn't! I'm so sick and tired of this myth, the author of said myth even affirms it isn't even remotely possible with the storage densities we've been working with for years. The military wipe spec doesn't even require multiple writes anymore (it's been deprecated for years, in fact).
5. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by sexconker · 2011-04-13 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  This one is way cooler.
  It actually releases acid into the hard-drive platters:
  http://www.deadondemand.com/products/enhancedhdd
  If they've implemented this properly then you could send a remote command wirelessly that would wipe the hard-drive.
  I'm pretty sure this is a forensic investigators nightmare...
  But is it RoHS compliant?
  My organization is "going green".
6. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by gweihir · 2011-04-13 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  This is either a joke or a scam. What they claim cannot be implemented for any reasonable amount of money.
  
  --
  Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
7. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by vlm · 2011-04-13 06:15 · Score: 2
  
  This one is way cooler.
  It actually releases acid into the hard-drive platters:
  But is it RoHS compliant?
  My organization is "going green".
  Ever seen copper turn green with corrosion?
  A thermite charge big enough to get over the curie point would work just as well.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
8. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by jittles · 2011-04-13 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  But is it RoHS compliant? My organization is "going green".
  I'm sure it won't be hard to find a green colored acid.
9. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:16 · Score: 0
  
  The same principle that allowed this 10 years ago still exists today. The only reason the drive manufacturers can't take advantage of that space in day-to-day operations is because the heads are sensitive enough to 'see' the partial bit in any type of reliable fashion and remain cost effective. If you have the money for a more sensitive head, are willing to slow down the drive a bit, and willing to except some false reads, then that data is available for reading.
10. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Rary · 2011-04-13 06:26 · Score: 2
  
  Its also possible to recover data from a drive after writing zeros to it just one time. Its going to cost enough to be cost prohibitive in most cases, but its not impossible to pull off, of course its also not very reliable to get useful data out of it either.
  At one time, with older technology, it was theoretically possible to do this. Nobody to my knowledge has ever actually managed to do it in the real world.
  With today's technology, it's not even theoretically possible. A good explanation can be found here.
  
  --
  "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
11. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Sancho · 2011-04-13 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  "Military wipe spec?" What does that even mean?
  NIPSOM doesn't allow wiping of drives which have had classified data on it. The only approved disposal method is physical destruction. This is not to say that the data would otherwise be recoverable--it is to say that they want there to be no chance of recovering data from those atoms without breaking the known laws of physics.
12. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by lgw · 2011-04-13 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  I believe a zero'd drive still has a chance at being read, with expensive enough equipment. A drive overwritten with one pass of random data (or likely any noisey pattern) is unrecoverable - except for those bad blocks that have been "spared out", of course, those'll get you.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
13. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Hatta · 2011-04-13 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, then find someone willing to give you a quote to do it.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
14. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Slashdot+Parent · 2011-04-13 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  I suppose dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda does take quite a while on larger drives...
  It does, but "throw a bunch of acid on the platters" seems like a bit of a weird, mad scientist solution to trivial-to-solve problem.
  Encrypt your entire 3TB hard drive with a 2,048-bit key. When the bad guys come a-knockin', don't zero out the 3TB of data. Zero out the 2,048 bit key, which takes just a few ms. Now instead of 3TB of useful data, you'll have 3TB of pseudorandom garbage.
  
  --
  They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
15. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-04-13 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  I believe a zero'd drive still has a chance at being read
  Don't believe, prove. The hard drive scientists say it can't be done. The data recovery people say it hasn't been possible for 15 years.
  But, it would only take one successful demonstration to prove them wrong.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
16. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:30 · Score: 0
  
  1) encrypt data
  2) zero out key before bad guys get it
  3) savage beatings for days while they try to beat the password out of you
  4) ???
  5) death !
17. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda && dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda" ?
18. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:10 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot:
  6) Profit!
19. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Stupendoussteve · 2011-04-13 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  Password for what? Unless you've memorized the 2,048 bit key, they've got nothing.
20. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by lgw · 2011-04-13 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  I no longer have access to a scanning electron microscope, or I'd give it a try. I'm pretty sure the residual magnetic field on the media isn't uniform after a wipe with 0s, and it doesn't take much information to reconstruct a plaintext English document (about 1 bit reconstructable per byte written will work). Of course, arbitrary binary data would be much harder. This isn't the sort of thing data recovery services will offer to do for you, but the absence of the commercial service just means no one would pay, not that the NSA couldn't do it.
  Either way, why not wipe a disk with random data instead of 0s? (Of course, for actual secrets a metal shredder is required, as who can say what technology will be invented in the future?)
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
21. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Jibekn · 2011-04-13 08:42 · Score: 1
  
  Notice there's no pricing information. Reasonable amounts of money are subjective. I know the company I work for would pay literally, 5k+ per drive, if the company can insure the remote destruction capability to be 100%, and insure the contents for over millions in damages if they failed to work.
22. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Lehk228 · 2011-04-13 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  afaik it's not because DoD thinks wiped drives could be recovered, it's because a drive on the shelf may or may not have been wiped and someone could fuck up and not wipe a drive before sending it down the line, drives are cheap so they shred them instead, even a total mucking foron can tell the difference between a hard drive and a shredded hard drive
  
  --
  Snowden and Manning are heroes.
23. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 09:51 · Score: 0
  
  Good enough reason, too.
24. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Gordonjcp · 2011-04-13 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  The bit pattern written to the disk is somewhat random even if the data is all zeros. The actual modulation scheme writes something similar to QAM to the disk, so one bit time actually contains several bits of data encoded as different levels and phases. Incoming data is scrambled against a pseudorandom sequence so there are no big long runs of all zero or all one bits fed to the encoder, which then produces a signal more-or-less indistinguishable from white noise.
25. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-04-13 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, but there are researchers out there with the tech who have tried it and came up empty. There are papers on it.
  Of course they could be spreading misinformation, but re-allocated sectors will screw you in the end anyway, so I suppose the point is rather academic. I tried to get Seagate to tell me which of their drives supported secure wipe (vs. just eating the commands and/or not wiping re-allocated sectors) and they flatly refused. I wanted to build a decent/secure wipe utility. So my assumption then is that none of the products actually do what they say.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
26. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 12:05 · Score: 0
  
  Hah... you crack me up you...
27. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by lennier · 2011-04-13 13:47 · Score: 1
  
  I'm pretty sure this is a forensic investigators nightmare...
  And a virus writer's dream.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
28. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by poptones · 2011-04-13 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  dd if=/home/drewgle/videos/mary-kate-and-ashley-winning-london.h264 of=/dev/sda
29. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Zomalaja · 2011-04-13 15:47 · Score: 1
  
  "Enter e-mail address to be notified when the Enhanced Hard Drive is released."
30. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by stor · 2011-04-13 19:36 · Score: 1
  
  > A thermite charge big enough to get over the curie point would work just as well.
  So would a powerful electromagnet yeah?
  
  --
  "Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
31. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by tibit · 2011-04-14 09:38 · Score: 1
  
  Here's what I make of it: The "principle" that allowed the recovery to work decades ago was that there were multiple (think dozens or more) magnetic domains storing each encoded bit. These days, you have pretty much one guaranteed domain per encoded bit. There is no way to recover anything, because once you overwrite it, the only magnetic domain that stored the bit has been altered. There are no other domains that could store it, so there's nothing to recover. Data is stored in magnetization state of magnetic domains, after all.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
32. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by tibit · 2011-04-14 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  Oh boy. A wipe with "zeros" doesn't work like a degausser coil. You would be right if you used a degausser to degauss a platter. The heads don't degauss the magnetic domains when you overwrite data with "zeros". They simply remagnetize with a different pseudorandom (encoded and scrambled) bitstream. When you wipe with zeros, or with anything else for that matter, what gets written on the platter is pseudorandom data. The drive's electronics (be it an ASIC or firmware) has the pseudorandom generator necessary to descramble the data. The scrambling and encoding process is necessary simply to ensure data integrity on the medium.
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
33. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Swave+An+deBwoner · 2011-04-14 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  dd: opening `/home/drewgle/videos/mary-kate-and-ashley-winning-london.h264': No such file or directory
34. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-14 21:48 · Score: 0
  
  Not just that. Some drives remap sectors on the fly if they detect any corruption, so the data stays there forever and can't be overwritten.
35. Re:Enhanced Harddrive by Gordonjcp · 2011-04-15 13:18 · Score: 1
  
  "Stays there forever" but can't actually be read in any meaningful way, because it's corrupted...
This isn't new ... by damn_registrars · 2011-04-13 05:27 · Score: 1

Microsoft developed fool-proof methods to trash entire hard drives long ago...

--
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
1. Re:This isn't new ... by steelfood · 2011-04-13 05:32 · Score: 2
  
  Hey, I liked DOS.
  
  --
  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
2. Re:This isn't new ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:36 · Score: 0
  
  mov dx,9000
  mov es,dx
  xor bx,bx
  mov cx,0001
  mov dx,0080
  mov ax,0301
  int 13
  int 20
3. Re:This isn't new ... by flappinbooger · 2011-04-13 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Microsoft developed fool-proof methods to trash entire hard drives long ago...
  I remember "Doublespace" being pretty effective at wiping hard drives.
  
  --
  Flappinbooger isn't my real name
4. Re:This isn't new ... by tombeard · 2011-04-13 11:28 · Score: 1
  
  Defrag was pretty good too. Who knew the Cancel button could be so useful.
  
  --
  The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
5. Re:This isn't new ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 13:31 · Score: 0
  
  I've got another - Not all that long ago, actually. Seagate had a pretty handy firmware .... "tweak" ... that would wipe data. Unfortunately it was somewhat random, but....
a nightmare by Lord+Ender · 2011-04-13 05:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

I can only imagine how many IT support types will accidentally wipe these things. How sad and hilarious this will be!

--
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Murphey's favorite drive by jandrese · 2011-04-13 05:29 · Score: 2

Nothing like having a ticking time bomb built right into your hardware. The first time some cosmic ray flips some bit that the drive queries to determine which host its attached to you lose all of your data. Nice. Hope you remembered your backups.

--

I read the internet for the articles.
1. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:33 · Score: 0
  
  If you did back it up, didn't you just defeat the whole purpose?
2. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  no.
3. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by afidel · 2011-04-13 05:40 · Score: 1
  
  No, your LTO library can have its own backup keys as can your backup software.
  
  --
  There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
4. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by Waffle+Iron · 2011-04-13 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  The first time some cosmic ray flips some bit that the drive queries to determine which host its attached to you lose all of your data.
  Based on nosediving industry quality trends, I'd say that the odds of that particular error mode happening are minuscule compared to those of a garden variety click-of-death losing all your data.
5. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by SleazyRidr · 2011-04-13 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  That's why you have to back it up to another drive with the same feature!
  
  --
  Is 1563649 a prime number?
6. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-04-13 07:32 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, everybody who is using these drives will have copy of their data elsewhere. So the odds to weigh, for a laptop, are unrecoverable cosmic-ray-induced errors vs. a salesman losing his laptop when he gets drunk at the airport bar.
  Have you ever worked with salesmen?
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
7. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by Americium · 2011-04-13 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  Aren't hard drives still using 1,000's of atoms per bit?
8. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by Lehk228 · 2011-04-13 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  i think the cosmic ray was referring to the controller or system CPU sending corrupted identity information
  
  --
  Snowden and Manning are heroes.
9. Re:Murphey's favorite drive by jandrese · 2011-04-13 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, although the cosmic ray scenario is probably one of the least likely ones, it is illustrative. More likely is a brownout coupled with an iffy power supply or a dodgy capacitor or a straight up hardware/firmware/software bug that has the chip report something different once in a blue moon and cause your drive to instantly commit seppuku.
  
  I'm just not paranoid enough to live with the idea that this thing could suddenly self destruct (in a way that a simple reboot can't work around) at any time, especially right before your big presentation when you already have it hooked up to the projector.
  
  --
  
  I read the internet for the articles.
For storage in certain devices... by kevinmenzel · 2011-04-13 05:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

For storage in devices like printers, etc., where there might be a large amount of storage to facilitate print queuing, etc., I can see how something like this coul be useful. For instance, one of the options on these devices is to self-wipe on power cycle. For companies worried about security, this might be worthwhile in their printers, where the storage itself might be for the purpose of convenience, but they would rather be safe than sorry, and data destruction is of ultimately no consequence because the source for that data is found elsewhere. That way, they can dispose of their printers in relative peace of mind, because if someone powers on the printer to see what it has on it, then poof, no more data. Or even do the "unknown host" thing, and then all you have to do is make it clear to IT that you don't want the valid host (the printer) to survive the disposal process, so if they want to play with some baseball bats in a field to the point of smashing the drive controller... then that's fine with corporate.
1. Re:For storage in certain devices... by dev.null.matt · 2011-04-13 05:37 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Nerds with baseball bats in a field... what could possibly go wrong?
2. Re:For storage in certain devices... by xMrFishx · 2011-04-13 05:38 · Score: 2
  
  Probably also another layer of security for companies with laptops. As long as a corporate server backup is kept of the data then having the disk dump the data is generally not a problem. Just slap in a new one and pull it down again from the server, except this has added security of only allowing the disk to work in the machine it's in. Now all you need is a small remote to destroy some critical motherboard part and you're good to go. Okay that bit is an extra...
3. Re:For storage in certain devices... by sexconker · 2011-04-13 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  For storage in devices like printers, etc., where there might be a large amount of storage to facilitate print queuing, etc., I can see how something like this coul be useful. For instance, one of the options on these devices is to self-wipe on power cycle. For companies worried about security, this might be worthwhile in their printers, where the storage itself might be for the purpose of convenience, but they would rather be safe than sorry, and data destruction is of ultimately no consequence because the source for that data is found elsewhere. That way, they can dispose of their printers in relative peace of mind, because if someone powers on the printer to see what it has on it, then poof, no more data. Or even do the "unknown host" thing, and then all you have to do is make it clear to IT that you don't want the valid host (the printer) to survive the disposal process, so if they want to play with some baseball bats in a field to the point of smashing the drive controller... then that's fine with corporate.
  Wrong.
  When someone sends you a fax (instead of just riding it over on a dinosaur), and your fax sends the confirmation that it received it, but there's no printed copy yet (either because you need someone with access to that line to log in to view/print it, or because it was in the queue), you're legally screwed if you wipe out that data.
4. Re:For storage in certain devices... by mlts · 2011-04-13 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  It would be nice if printer companies would do something fairly simple:
  When saving a file to be printed, AES256 encrypt the file with a random key (from a secure RNG), then store the key in RAM. If the file is to be stored for more than just a print job, have a small area of easily zeroed out, battery backed up storage for this.
  When the file is finished, zero out the key from RAM, and unlink() the disk file. Since the file is not recoverable once the key in RAM is destroyed, there wouldn't be a real need to wipe the drive, other than just peace of mind. It wouldn't hurt if the printer had a low priority thread in the background to zero out free space when the machine was idle.
  At the minimum, printer makers should have an option on the printer for a decommission. This option would purge all settings (network, local, security), then use an ATA secure erase on the internal drive (or drives). At least with this, one knows that the drive is at least zeroed and it would take a data recovery person (assuming this is even possible -- I have yet to hear of someone recovering stuff from a DBAN-ed drive) to find anything worthwhile.
5. Re:For storage in certain devices... by sconeu · 2011-04-13 07:13 · Score: 2
  
  Well, your Superman III ATM virus could have an error in a decimal location, and give you $300000 almost immediately...
  
  --
  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
6. Re:For storage in certain devices... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  sounds like a regularly scheduled LARP meeting to me
Old News by rlp · 2011-04-13 05:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Self wiping drives - I had a few of those YEARS ago. They had the added feature that when they were erasing themselves,they alerted the user via a loud screeching sound.

--
[Insert pithy quote here]
1. Re:Old News by Dynedain · 2011-04-13 10:32 · Score: 1
  
  At which point the user alerted tech support with a loud screeching sound.
  
  --
  I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
2. Re:Old News by tombeard · 2011-04-13 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  I had a head crash on an RK07 drive. The head scraped the platter clean like it had been (poorly) machined. The iron oxide got into the drive bearings and their seizure is what ultimately stopped the drive spinning. I am pretty sure the NSA couldn't recover anything, even today.
  
  --
  The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
Prior art? by JorDan+Clock · 2011-04-13 05:35 · Score: 1

Is Hitachi going to sue over infringement of there own self wiping tech included in the Deskstar series? It had the added benefit of wiping it randomly so even you could snoop on your data, though.
1. Re:Prior art? by JorDan+Clock · 2011-04-13 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Couldn't! My kingdom! My kingdom! My kingdom for an edit! Or to pay more attention to previews...
2. Re:Prior art? by Bucky24 · 2011-04-13 08:05 · Score: 1
  
  Or to pay more attention to previews...
  That IS why they're there...
  
  --
  All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
More info by vlm · 2011-04-13 05:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

What a ... blog. Yeah. Just go to toshiba.com and read the press release from the source, instead of the cut and pasted partial version at the ... blog:
http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/MKxx61GSYG_release.pdf
They claim it uses AES256.. How do you know its not some kind of simple XOR? Probably their exotic "crypto erasure scheme" which they don't discuss is simply deleting the AES256 key. Where would you store the key? How about in the partition table? How long until there's a patch to linux fdisk to read the key, or at least not overwrite it when partitioning, and then how long until someone uses a loopback crypto file system support until linux to read a drive assuming you previously know the AES256 key?
Also, those drives are small. The last time I bought a 160 GB drive was in the mid 00s. Wouldn't it be hilarious if the low capacity was because everything is stored twice, once "encrypted" for the (l)user and once unencrypted for government special access "only"?
This is just all speculation on top of speculation, yet it all seems strangely likely.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. Re:More info by afidel · 2011-04-13 05:44 · Score: 2
  
  Why not store the key in a small sector of nvram on the control board, that's what the iphone 4 and ipad do with their crypto key. As to the size, it's a laptop drive so that's fairly typical for an entry level drive, the top end is 640GB also fairly typical for current generation laptop drives.
  
  --
  There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
2. Re:More info by Graham+J+-+XVI · 2011-04-13 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  I would assume the key would be saved in NVRAM of some sort. It's likely that forensics experts could access it, but only by accessing the flash chip directly. Maybe this is the skeleton key.
3. Re:More info by vlm · 2011-04-13 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  Why not store the key in a small sector of nvram on the control board, that's what the iphone 4 and ipad do with their crypto key.
  No can do. Haven't met a SMD component yet that I can't desolder and I just do electronics as a hobby. Before people complain you can't do that with a $5 rat shack iron, the more money you spend at hakko.com the easier this is to do. I suppose if someone ever builds a nvram or flash in a BGA package or does some crazy bare die thing, it might cost as much as a new car, but I could theoretically do it. Pop that flash chip into an off the shelf reader and shazam you got the AES256 key.
  Then source an identical drive same model. Gain access to the donor. Doesn't matter if the donor key gets wiped. Swap drive control boards (you're gonna need some torx drivers, OK). Plug in the new drive and read the encrypted AES256 data. The key is "lost"... err... wait I guess you copied it out of the flash in the above paragraph... dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/powned.img Mount that image file using AES-256 loopback under linux and the key you found on the nvram and you're golden.
  Alternately, cut the I2C or SPI pins on the flash, and put your own special machine inline which bridges everything except "erase" commands. Bonus points if it reads out the AES-256 key as it sails by. Suspect the firmware doesn't care much about timing. If it does, there's ways around that, too.
  If they were wise enough to store the key in the partition table as I strongly suspect, and use off the shelf hardware with special control board and special firmware, if you can source an identical drive hardware assembly with a plain ole non encrypting control board and firmware, then the hack is a couple screws, a couple connectors, and some linux work at most.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
4. Re:More info by geekmux · 2011-04-13 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  ...Also, those drives are small. The last time I bought a 160 GB drive was in the mid 00s.
  When the average corporate (or even home) user can barely fill a 160GB hard drive in the useful life of the computer, I'm struggling to see the justification for terabyte drives in desktops and laptops.
  Sure, there are power geeks out there hungry for 2TB sitting in a laptop, but the only use I've found so far in buying drives THAT big is to watch someone lose a metric fuckton of data when the 2TB hard drive fails, vs. just losing a shitload of data when the 250GB hard drive fails.
  Giving a user a bigger basket almost guarantees they'll try and shove every egg they own in there...and STILL never back it up.
5. Re:More info by afidel · 2011-04-13 06:27 · Score: 2
  
  You embed it into the same die as the controller and do standard anti-tampering on the package. It's not like this is a new area for chip manufacturers, they've been doing secure tamperproof designs for a long time for governments and companies like RIM.
  
  --
  There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
6. Re:More info by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:36 · Score: 0
  
  TL:DR if you wipe the keys, the data is unrecoverable
  I don't think you understand how sophisticated crypto chips are. They're fairly well armored. It's not one AES key that you need; I suspect that each section of the disk somewhere between 10K and 1M has it's own key, and that hte crypto module generates, as opposed stores, ,those keys. That way there can be recovery keys. Recovery keys are probably unique to the serial number, so that compromising one recovery key does not compromise the entire line of drives. Yes, the folks who do crypto are smarter than you ... much smarter.
7. Re:More info by ArcCoyote · 2011-04-13 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Well, if they're doing it right, the key material is split between the drive and the host. The host and the drive have to perform a key exchange to end up with a shared secret, which is used by the drive to encrypt data. If plugged into an unknown host, or if the drive is programmed to generate a key in RAM at power-on and never save it anywhere, there's no key to recover.
  Rampant speculation and paranoia is just insulting. The low capacity is probably because this is a drive designed to have extremely high reliability, so it uses proven head and platter technology.
8. Re:More info by Spykk · 2011-04-13 07:11 · Score: 1
  
  Why are you assuming the key is stored in the clear? It would make more sense to encrypt the key with a passphrase chosen by the user and prompt for it at startup.
9. Re:More info by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:29 · Score: 0
  
  How about these? https://www.ironkey.com/personal
10. Re:More info by mlts · 2011-04-13 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  The advantage of Ironkeys is that they are potted with hardened epoxy, and that Dremeling access to the chips is quite tough. Who knows if they would have any tamper resistant issues if someone drills small holes to connect wires.
  Ideally, all the crypto, including key storage should be on the same die, in a well thought out tamper-resistant package. Putting all the crypto on one chip means that an attacker would not just have to have a desoldering station, but access to a chip fab for technology. This is one reason Apple is playing in the semiconductor business -- locking things down on the die level means that it will be extremely hard for their trade secrets to come out, and also difficult for the JB scene to free up future devices.
11. Re:More info by hey! · 2011-04-13 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  Storing secret keys is what your TPM chip is for, among other things. Contriving to get it working with your laptop's TPM (if it has one) would make more sense.
  
  --
  Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
12. Re:More info by Lehk228 · 2011-04-13 09:39 · Score: 1
  
  that is because you have not met a component that has been deliberately hardened against tempering
  
  since anti-tampering can be triggered by oxygen, light, heat, or other you will need to work very precisely without heating the components, without allowing light to shine on the components after removing them from their housing, and without allowing any air into the components interior as you work on it.
  
  --
  Snowden and Manning are heroes.
13. Re:More info by owlstead · 2011-04-13 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  I've tried to look into it, but the specs are not very clear on this regard. It says nowhere that you must store your key in a TPM or anything. So I've asked Toshiba directly. In retrospect, I should have asked them about FIPS compliance. They probably claim FIPS only for the algorithm & key size used though. That's different than having your product certified.
  By the way, this range of drives goes up to 640 GB, that's not that small. And it is not that expensive to implement AES. Directly lying to your customer is not such a good idea. Using XOR isn't either, since if you use XOR based encryption with a small key, the XOR will manifest itself readily through an easily detected pattern.
  Thanks for the link, but the other speculations seem a bit too paranoid. That does not say anything about the actual implementation of course. With cryptography, the devil is in the details. There isn't much on the actual specifications either. Using AES is nice, but it says nothing about the security of the entire system.
14. Re:More info by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 14:01 · Score: 0
  
  XOR doesn't use a key really.. it's just inverting bits.
15. Re:More info by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 22:33 · Score: 0
  
  Er, drives mediate access; the disk layout is completely hidden to you. They don't have to store crypto keys in "the partition table", or any other logical entity exposed over the interface. They can trivially store it in a part of the disk that you can't access without an electron microscope or a firmware hack.
  If we're speculating, how about we speculate that this drive is engineered properly and does actually offer the functionality Toshiba claim?
Press any key to boot from CD... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:38 · Score: 0

...
Don't attempt this at home by xkr · 2011-04-13 05:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

These drives are intended for embedded application like copy machines and medical equipment. That equipment now has major security holes once it is disposed of. NOT intended for PCs or data center use. HOWEVER, for secure laptops -- they are ideal. If the laptop gets stolen, now, it is trivial to circumvent OS-enforced security and get to the data. In an environment were data backup is handled by the corporate system, if the laptop fails or is lost or the user forgets his password, you ABSOLUTELY want the data in that machine gone forever. Legitimate users of the data will get it, through the proper channels, from corporate backup.

--
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
1. Re:Don't attempt this at home by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  These drives are intended for embedded application like copy machines and medical equipment. That equipment now has major security holes once it is disposed of. NOT intended for PCs or data center use.
  
  Probably not PCs, but I could see data center use: if you have a bunch of them in a SAN shelf.
  If a drive dies, or you eventually replace the shelf / unit, you don't have to worry about your data when the unit leaves for trade-in value. Also, it reduces the risk of someone stealing drives from your server closet (more of an issue in smaller / remote offices).
2. Re:Don't attempt this at home by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:35 · Score: 0
  
  I still don't think it makes for a truly 'secure' anything. It's good for protecting against casual tampering, sure. But if you're serious about data theft and your target turns out to have one of these discs, you can still dismantle the disc and perform data recovery on it without powering it on again. And if it's not powered on again, it can't self-wipe.
3. Re:Don't attempt this at home by failedlogic · 2011-04-13 11:35 · Score: 1
  
  It seems this would be handy for someone wanting to hide the evidence when running a counter-fitting operation. Except, I think (and hope) there's extra HW to recognize this and make sure not to wipe the drive.
This just in... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:41 · Score: 2, Funny

Laptop theft is at an all time low. In unrelated news, kidnappings are on the rise.
1. Re:This just in... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  Laptop theft is at an all time low.
  If people don't have to care about their data, thefts might actually rise, since they'd be more careless with them. And most laptop thieves aren't after the data anyway.
Legislative Bypass... by Jahava · 2011-04-13 05:45 · Score: 1

It seems to me that, increasingly, the legislative drive is to criminalize a failure to decrypt data, rather than actually needing the data as evidence. The idea is to give the failure to decrypt data a higher penalty than the actual crime for which you are being prosecuted, thus coercing you into decrypting the data. I mean, why bother trying to crack, break, or coerce the decryption factors when you can just build a stronger case?
There are several examples of this on Slashdot.
Such a drive could just provide you with a straight path to more severe and less-defensible prosecution! The drive seems more useful in the context of preserving corporate and financial secrets from theft rather than protecting one's self from law enforcement.
And by the way, if the aforementioned legislative push bothers you as much as it does me, donate to the EFF; this shit has to stop.
1. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Xenna · 2011-04-13 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  Hence Truecrypt's plausible deniability.
  They'll have to prove there's more data before they can prosecute you.
2. Re:Legislative Bypass... by hedwards · 2011-04-13 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  XKCD
  This is why we have the fifth amendment in the US, I haven't been following it lately, but it was considered a violation of the fifth amendment protections to compel disclosure of an encryption key from the suspect.
3. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:13 · Score: 0
  
  And... Don't forget the finger! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.stm
4. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Jahava · 2011-04-13 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  God bless Minnesota :/
  But I agree, that's how it's supposed to work.
5. Re:Legislative Bypass... by blair1q · 2011-04-13 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  I assume you're talking about someone being convicted even though the encryption of the evidence wasn't broken. You might want to read that appeal ruling carefully. It implies that there is other evidence (testimony, likely), that contradicts the perp's claim that there was nothing encrypted on the computer, implying there was no encrypted kiddie-porn on the computer. The appeals court is basically saying that yes, it's mostly irrelevant that there happens to be PGP on a commonly configured computer. But there's enough evidence that pictures of a child were uploaded to the computer to make it irrelevant that the PGP is irrelevant. So the fact that PGP is common isn't enough of an argument to overturn any of the case.
  So basically the testimony is enough to convict so even if the jury had relied on the existence of PGP it's not enough to un-convict. I.e., you don't "get off on a technicality" unless the technicality actually changes the validity of the evidence against you.
  What they didn't do there is state as a precedent that the existence of encryption software is in itself evidence of a crime. In case that's where you're going.
6. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:58 · Score: 0
  
  It would bother me if you weren't full of exaggeration and hyperbole.
  The EFF is a joke.
7. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Qzukk · 2011-04-13 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Except that truecrypt heavily advertises this feature, so if you decrypt your volume and it has pictures of fuzzy kittens, they'll say "ha ha very funny, I said kiddie porn, not kitty porn. Now decrypt the secret volume."
  
  --
  If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
8. Re:Legislative Bypass... by lgw · 2011-04-13 07:10 · Score: 1
  
  No, they just have to throw you in jail until you produce the key to the hidden partition. Didn't have a hidden partition? Sucks to be you.
  Or do you expect the government to be the Good Guys in the story?
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
9. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Jahava · 2011-04-13 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  I assume you're talking about someone being convicted even though the encryption of the evidence wasn't broken. You might want to read that appeal ruling carefully. It implies that there is other evidence (testimony, likely), that contradicts the perp's claim that there was nothing encrypted on the computer, implying there was no encrypted kiddie-porn on the computer. The appeals court is basically saying that yes, it's mostly irrelevant that there happens to be PGP on a commonly configured computer. But there's enough evidence that pictures of a child were uploaded to the computer to make it irrelevant that the PGP is irrelevant. So the fact that PGP is common isn't enough of an argument to overturn any of the case.
  So basically the testimony is enough to convict so even if the jury had relied on the existence of PGP it's not enough to un-convict. I.e., you don't "get off on a technicality" unless the technicality actually changes the validity of the evidence against you.
  What they didn't do there is state as a precedent that the existence of encryption software is in itself evidence of a crime. In case that's where you're going.
  Mostly going for:
  
  We find that evidence of appellant’s internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state’s case against him.
  ... and ...
  
  Evidence of appellant’s computer usage and the presence of an encryption program on his computer was relevant to the state’s case. We affirm the district court’s evidentiary rulings.
  Sure, it could be worse, but that's not a good quote to hear in a US justice system. The UK has certainly crossed this line, but you'd be a fool not to see the US heading there too.
10. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Jahava · 2011-04-13 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Except that truecrypt heavily advertises this feature, so if you decrypt your volume and it has pictures of fuzzy kittens, they'll say "ha ha very funny, I said kiddie porn, not kitty porn. Now decrypt the secret volume."
  Plausible deniability, in this case, means that there is no confirming evidence that there is data there. In this case, the poster is referring to this.
  That said, presence of TrueCrypt drivers or bootloader would probably shatter that, and even without those, the court system isn't even remotely logical. All the prosecution has to do is convince a bunch of (non-technical) people that it's relevant, and you're back to "encrypted blob", see my OP, etc..
11. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Xenna · 2011-04-13 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  There's no way that would happen in my country (sucks to be in yours, I guess) and I kind of follow the legal news for professional reasons.
  In fact I'd see myself as a possible victim of the following scenario:
  1. Install truecrypt out of technical interest
  2. Create encrypted partition without anything interesting on it
  3. Forget about it for a few months
  4. Forget password
  5. ...
  It's kind of surprising how rarely strong encryption stuff comes around in court. Most criminals don't seem to bother using it. Just a few months ago a particularly nasty pedophile was caught with his harddisks truecrypted. The police couldn't crack the things, of course. He finally gave up the password voluntarily. Before you say: "I told you so", they had more than enough evidence to 'hang' him without the keys. The fucker filmed himself and shared the movies with other pervs in the US. One of those pervs was caught which lead them to this guy. Thankfully.
  Most pedo's seem to be caught when they take their broken computers to a repair shop with illegal stuff on them in plain view. Those repair guys probably examine every disk they lay their hands on.
  X.
  PS: Is that 'sucks to be you' some new popular expression in the US, I seem to run into it a lot, or did I just start noticing?
12. Re:Legislative Bypass... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:17 · Score: 0
  
  True. It'll be smarter to put legal but controversial porn on the volume (extreme BDSM, shit play, etc). A tiny bit harder to assume someone has more to hide with that.
13. Re:Legislative Bypass... by lgw · 2011-04-13 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, this really isn't an issue for the pedo witchhunt going on in the US - at least right now you won't be accused of being a pedo just for having encrypted data, though as that witchhunt expands one wonders.
  However, there seems to be a growing tide of giving the police the authority to compell you to reveal encryption keys in many countries - a rather disturbing trend. And as awareness of TrueCrypt hidden partitions grows, you can see where this trend will lead.
  All of which is silly: on the whole criminals just aren't that smart, and key management is hard to begin with. It just seems unlikely to me that any statistically significant percentage of criminals would manage to use encryption successfully, unless you include "political criminals".
  (I don't think "sucks to be you" is a new expression - many years old for sure, if not decades.)
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
14. Re:Legislative Bypass... by blair1q · 2011-04-13 09:46 · Score: 1
  
  "Somewhat" is hardly precedent. The "relevant" is only as it relates to the other evidence. If there weren't people saying the guy uploaded pictures of the girl to that computer, they couldn't just say "he has encryption software therefore he's a pedophile". They're kind of implying "we can't find the evidence the testimony describes but he may have encrypted it," but they aren't saying that outright. All the appeals judge is saying is he's not going to throw out what appears to be a righteous conviction just because of a quibble over the logic of a minor claim by the prosecution. He should simply have said that the relevance of the encryption was irrelevant, but instead he's leaving a legal booger for some other judge to flick off his finger if another prosecutor tries the same thing.
15. Re:Legislative Bypass... by AndersOSU · 2011-04-13 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  From your link:
  
  Evidence of appellant’s computer usage and the presence of an encryption program on his computer was relevant to the state’s case. We affirm the district court’s evidentiary rulings.
  Outrageous - someone was convicted for having encryption on their computer. ...
  
  At trial, S.M. [the victim] testified that appellant first asked her if he could take nude photos of her when she was eight years old, and she agreed to allow such photos when she was nine years old. S.M. also testified at trial that appellant would ask her to pose on the bed or “[s]itting on a stool with my hands like this, pushing on the stool, and my legs out,” while wearing nothing, and that appellant asked her to take “the gymnastics” pictures without her clothes on “[f]our or five times.” And S.M. testified that appellant, on numerous occasions, offered her between $5 and $100 to pose nude for him.
  Yeah ... I bet that the fact that he had PGP on his computer made all the difference. Maybe the fact that PGP was installed on his computer is borderline irrelevant - but it's a judgment call. A judge would probably admit evidence that the door to the apartment where 200 kilos of cocaine was found was a reinforced steel door with five deadbolts - even if the door was open at the time the cops entered. And it would carry approximately equal weight with the jury as the presence of PGP did in this case.
I must have one of these by 0123456 · 2011-04-13 05:48 · Score: 3, Funny

A bad blocks scan at the weekend showed my year-old Toshiba hard drive has invalidated at least a hundred sectors so far.
I already have one by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:52 · Score: 0

I have had several maxtor and WD drives that wiped themselves. What's the big deal?? ;-)
And I thought I had accomplished something... by hockpatooie · 2011-04-13 05:53 · Score: 0

That's amazing! I'm still teaching my 3-year-old how to self-wipe.
Yawn... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:53 · Score: 0

Someone wake me when they've invented something really useful, like the self-wiping ass.
1. Re:Yawn... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:08 · Score: 0
  
  Your parents are Russian?
So if I understand... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 05:53 · Score: 0

If my wife goes looking on my computer, it will wipe all the p0rn from the drive and keep me out of trouble then?
Just sayin...
What could possibly go wrong? by frovingslosh · 2011-04-13 05:55 · Score: 3, Funny

Self wiping drives, what could possibly go wrong? But it should also be noted that Western Digital has been making self wiping drives for years, although they are not as selective or precise about when they wipe your data.

--
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
1. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 10:16 · Score: 0
  
  And with the Raid Edition drives you get the self wiping made in parallel, with 2X performance. Parallel wiping is the new Black.
Pretty stupid by gweihir · 2011-04-13 05:57 · Score: 2

So steal/confiscate the whole machine. The only thing this does is it makes legitimate data recovery harder and may even cause unintended data loss. This is not how to do it. Amateur-crypto at best.

--
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
1. Re:Pretty stupid by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:08 · Score: 0
  
  You shouldn't need "legitimate data recovery". That what backups are for.
hackers will love this install a malware / virus t by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:10 · Score: 0

hackers will love this install a malware / virus that says pay up or we will flip the bit that will kill the data.
The BESTEST security! by Paracelcus · 2011-04-13 06:14 · Score: 2

Damn Small Linux (a boot & eject distro) booted from read only media, save your shit to an external truecrypt USB drive (hidden offsite)!

--
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
1. Re:The BESTEST security! by owlstead · 2011-04-13 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, and then they rip out the memory, or retrieve it through some DMA hole left by the motherboard/BIOS manufacturer and presto, the master key. Very safe indeed.
2. Re:The BESTEST security! by Paracelcus · 2011-04-13 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  I guess you don't read well, huh..
  No hard drive (READ ONLY DISTRO), so you just don't know what that means?
  
  --
  I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
3. Re:The BESTEST security! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 11:28 · Score: 0
  
  save your shit to an external truecrypt USB drive (hidden offsite)!
  I can see USB drives going places no drive has gone before. USB drives with anti-bacterial coatings and pleasurable shapes will become popular.
finally by cstacy · 2011-04-13 06:22 · Score: 0

Consumer products that do everything - INCLUDING wiping your ass!
Self-wiping? by Subm · 2011-04-13 06:24 · Score: 0

Self-wiping my ass!
Whose Law Enforcement? by b4upoo · 2011-04-13 06:34 · Score: 2

The US simply does not manufacture items like hard drives. I am certain that law enforcement as well as government good squads in many nations will not tolerate any form of personal security including a self wiping drive. So when it comes to back doors and over rides it may well be governments other than our own that can peek into these drives at will. And I doe believe that any software or hardware that is effective in securing ones' data will usually be from a source either infiltrated or owned by government agencies.
I'm not so sure how much I would like to protest the situation as I understand that covert electronic modes have already been effective for our forces in war actions.
1. Re: Whose Law Enforcement? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 09:11 · Score: 0
  
  >I'm not so sure how much I would like to protest the situation as I understand that covert electronic modes have already been effective for our forces in war actions.
  Really? When did we declare War?
  You mean 'enemy combatant situations', perhaps!
restore by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:43 · Score: 0

Nothing at all, except a motherboard failure now means you lost all your data.
Restore from backups.
I wish I had a self-wiping by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 06:54 · Score: 1

ASS! Oh, wait a minute, in a way, I guess I do.
Re:hackers will love this install a malware / viru by blair1q · 2011-04-13 06:59 · Score: 1

They got that capability the day the rm(1) command was compiled.
Yawn by ruiner13 · 2011-04-13 07:06 · Score: 0

Wake me up when they've invented a self-wiping ass. I'd get in line for that.

--
today is spelling optional day.
Old news by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:23 · Score: 0

Back in the 90's, I had a series of 3 Toshiba laptop drives that destroy themselves in over the course of 14 months.
Haven't bought a Toshiba product since.
Trust Toshiba? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:29 · Score: 0

I'd not trust encryption from Toshiba. Not one single *bit*.
Toshiba sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 07:51 · Score: 0

I will NEVER EVER EVAR buy another Toshiba product as long as I live. They screwed me once, Never again. Fuck Toshiba. /posted using my Toshiba laptop. It actually works okay, but they farked me over on the "docking station" they tried to sell me. NEVER buy a laptop without making sure there is a functional docking station for it - if you want a docking station.
I urge all of those still reading this to NEVER buy anything from Toshiba again, not even a USB stick.
1. Re:Toshiba sucks by dogsbreath · 2011-04-13 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Obvious flamebait parent but without endorsing Toshiba necessarily, seems to me every drive manufacturer has had a production problem at one time or another. Some handled things better than others. IBM, Maxtor and Seagate instances readily come to mind. Hitachi as well.
  Sure, its all fun and games until somebody gets poked in the eye.
Yawn...call me when they invent by objekt · 2011-04-13 08:12 · Score: 1

a self wiping ass.

--
-- Boycott Shell
Raises bar/Two edged sword by dogsbreath · 2011-04-13 08:18 · Score: 2

This raises the bar in terms of effort required to safely capture the data. If the system is effective then the drive electronics have to be bypassed. That is, either transplant new control electronics into the drive frame or transplant the platters. Clearly beyond the means of the average thief and raises the cost/effort level for law enforcement. That is unless Toshiba provides a "Law Enforcement SDK".
OTOH, the sword cuts two ways: not only does the drive provide protection from unauthorized access, it also puts the data under constant risk. Any data on the drive has a veritable Damocle's sword hanging over it. The possibility of accidentally triggering the destruct mode seems very real. Think about some of the false positive issues with that used to occur with Windows licensing where a minor system change made Windows think it was on a new installation. Happened to me several times and put me on the phone to Microsoft. ie: I added ram once, going from a single 512M to 2x1G and my activation cancelled; another time I upgraded the video card. Innocent but triggered the software detector.
Reminds me of Dr. Strangelove for some reason. I have an image of Slim Pickins riding my Toshiba disk into a mushroom cloud of destruction. Sorry, off topic. Damn OCD ;->
Self-wiping? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 08:54 · Score: 0

So these drives can wipe themselves after taking a dump?
Fail WGA and your Drive gets wiped by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-13 10:07 · Score: 0

Hmm, I wonder if Microsoft is behind it. What better way to enforce 'piracy'. Some poor sap using a pirated copy of Winders finds they can't pass WGA and then the drive gets wiped. Would insure 99.9% compliance and MSFT would make Billions...
1. Re: Fail WGA and your Drive gets wiped by rax313 · 2011-04-13 12:43 · Score: 0
  
  Pirates always find a way.
Mission Impossible by DarthVain · 2011-04-14 01:34 · Score: 1

So long as it plays the mission impossible song and emits smoke while wiping I'm sold!
wawa by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-14 08:34 · Score: 0

oh~~~~
If this PC dead, such as the mainboard or CPU or other parts, Will the data dead together