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Adam Lanza Destroyed His Computer Before Rampage
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Here's some breaking news I saw MSNBC this morning that I haven't seen reported anywhere in the print media yet. NBC reporter Pete Williams reported on Chuck Todd's The Daily Rundown that (police) 'had been hopeful that they could extract some information from the computer at (Lanza's) home. He was very into computers. Before he left his mother's house on the morning that he shot his mother while she was sleeping, he damaged extensively his computer. He took the hard drive out, pulled the disk out, and did a lot of damage to it,' said Williams. 'It's not clear that (police) are going to be able to extract any information or not.' It has previously been reported that Lanza left no online footprint. Police had been eager to examine Lanza's computer in hopes of determining a motive in his killings or finding records of purchases of firearms and ammunition. 'If he visited certain websites, they are going to glean whatever information they can from that and see what it means,' said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. 'Does he have friends he communicates with online? Was there a fight with somebody?'"
That's funny, everything I've heard says the ONLY WAY to be completely sure your data is wiped is to physically destroy the disk.
Of course it wouldn't hurt to do a software-based wipe first, and who says he didn't?
He didn't purchase any of the guns he used so a background check wouldn't matter. The purchaser and owner of all the weapons was his mother.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
When I want to physically destroy my hard drives, I use bullets. Here's why it works:
The surface of the platters is covered in magnetic data, but in order to read it you have to be able to pass a head over it. If you bend the platters, put a few jagged holes in them, and destroy the bearing center, there is no technology that can run a read head reliably over a data track. If the platters are bent, you can't install them in a new drive or mount new heads. You also can't flatten them to the original tolerances without destroying the magnetic surface coating.
The biggest hand-waving magic people fear is the electon microscope techinques which have been shown to dig up even erased data by looking at the edges of the latest written data to see what was there before. While this is technically possible in ideal conditions, it requires that you can move the platter under the tip of the microscope with incredible precision. Without the platters in perfect physical shape, you'd risk destroying the electron microscope's fragile tip.
Pistol rounds generally dent the platters pretty seriously. Rifle rounds generally punch through leaving jagged holes. A combination of both is a fun day at the range, makes great desk art, and securely pretects your drives from ever being decoded again.
--Jaborandy
YI ask because I do not know - how easy / difficult is it for an adult in the US to buy a gun / rifle / whatever that can be used to shoot people dead?
It is easy. Here is the algorithm:
1. Get money.
2. Go to store.
3. Buy gun.
4. Depending on the state, you may need to wait up to 30 days to pick up your gun and take it home.
The seller is required to do an instant background check to make sure you have no criminal record. This only takes a few minutes.
About half of American homes have at least one gun.
I own a Remington 870 pump action shotgun, and an AR-15 assault rifle. I haven't fired the shotgun in over a decade, and the ammo I have is probably too stale to work reliably. I fire the AR-15 annually, and replace all the ammo so that it is fresh. If I have to defend my family (or join in an insurrection) the AR-15 is definitely my weapon of choice because it is functionally identical to an M-16 except for the full auto mode, and I had extensive experience with M-16s during a former employment.
I do not own a handgun, and I never will. There are not safe, especially around kids (I have two), and would be less effective than a rifle in almost any defensive scenario.
Seriously kid, stop watching fox, your bain is rotting away. Australia and Europe both got lower crime rates.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The fact that he tried to physically destroy things means he isn't nearly as smart as they want us to believe. They'll get quite a bit of it back. And more than likely will be able to get a pretty good profile of him by sequestering logs from various services, be it ISP, Xbox Live, etc.
Ah, no, they will get nothing back.
There is a huge myth around data recovery from physically damaged hard disk drives that all stems from an article written by Peter Gutmann as a research paper.
In the real world (Even the NSA's real world) this can not be done.
They have a much better chance of getting something back from the nvram in a cell phone uses as a clay pigeon.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I agree a lot with your post except for that leading statistic.
2009 Cause of death stats by the CDC:
Accidental discharge of firearms: 554
Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms: 18,735
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms: 11,493
Total: 30782
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf
That's 16% less than "over 100 a day" and nowhere near even third splits
A less misleading and sensationalist introduction would be "about 31 people died a day from gun-related homicides."
I honestly don't see guns involved in suicides as an issue as people that want to kill themselves are going to find ways to do it.
The number we obviously need to work on is the 11.5k gun homicides, especially when you compare us to other countries.
Can you please cite some data?
I've only looked around for a minute or two, and here's what I've got:
* The US had roughly 3 gun murders per 100 000 population in one year. (Data from 2008 - 2010)
* The UK had 0.04 per 100 000 population (2011)
* Australia had 0.09 per 100 000 (2008)
The (gun) murder rate in the US is 7.5 times larger than in the UK, and more than 3 times larger than in Australia. This would tend not to support your point. Since you mentioned crime, I did not cite the Suicide and Accidental Death numbers, but they make the US look even worse.
Incidentally, the country with the highest gun homicide rate in the EU (that I could find data for on short notice) was Luxemburg - 0.6 gun murders per 100 000 population (2009). The US gun homicide rate is 5 times larger . . .
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
Gutmann's paper is actually the basis for the myth that you can recover data from a logically-wiped drive: that is, one that's been entirely overwritten with other data (e.g. zeroes).
That, too, cannot be done.
“Guns aren’t even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, only 52 percent involved guns. The U.S. mass murder rate does not seem to rise or fall with the availability of automatic weapons. It reached its highest level in 1929, when fully automatic firearms were expensive and mostly limited to soldiers and organized criminals.”
And that's why Asperger's was eliminated in the DSM-V.
The new DSM is problematic, just as the last one was. Yes, it's certainly possible to abuse it. But the psychiatrists really are trying to help people, and they're just beginning to explore a difficult new field.
The range of human behavior is far, far more variable and intricate than any protein or subatomic particle. A century ago the science was nonexistent, then barbaric, then more harmful than helpful. Now occasionally it does more good than harm. If you don't like your shrink, get a new one. But rejecting the whole profession is just... well, paranoid.
The DSM was not concocted as part of a plot to lock people up. Its goal is to help. It may not, and that's why there's a DSM-6 already in the works. That's how science works.
A columnist at the CBC has a good article on how many Canadians feel about the USA's attitude towards guns and these horrible tragedies.
Anarchists never rule
I am still totally perplexed as to why rational thinking people could consider a law giving the right to bear arms, written in the days where arms meant sabres, brown bess muskets and the occasional long rifle (half a century before the invention of the Minié ball or rotating bolt) entitles them to buy AR-15 rifles and automatic handguns.
It's clear the intent of the founding fathers was to provide the people with the ability to overthrow the government. If you only allow people to have sabres and muskets in this age that clearly isn't following the intent. Automatic weapons are necessary to even have a chance.
However, I think we should definitely consider whether that is still necessary. Our democracy has had a long history of success and we have resolved many tough issues peacefully. We should repeal the second amendment. That doesn't mean that all guns would be illegal, but it would mean the government has the power to regulate them.