If the NSA were putting *anything* on computers for tracking, statistics or anything else, don't you think it would be something other than cookies? They have access to all the latest technology (including stuff we've probably never heard of - or were meant to hear of) and the best they can do is cookies?
Also, if they were truly trying to "spy" on people, do you really think that they'd let this story surface in any form? I realize that freedom of speech is granted by the constitution, but speech can't be done if the knowledge manages to....disappear.
You are correct in your description of the utility. There are actually many of them on the market and they all pretty much do the same thing. Depending on the options chosen the utility will write a specific pattern to the drive and render any data on the drive inaccessible (usually even to professional data recovery companies). There are also specific patterns required by the Department of Defense that many of these utilities incorporate.
Doing a normal format on the drive (by using the utilities built into Windows, etc) only eliminates the partition table and indexes, but does not clear the actual data from the drive. With no partition table or indexes, the operating system will eventually over-write those sectors with new data. However, until those sectors are actually used it is possible to get the previous data off of the drive. This can be done with several software data recovery utilities on the market as well.
The only problem I have with the "blanked" hard drive is that those utilities usually take several hours to run (depending on the capacity of the drive). This would mean that someone would have to know ahead of time that their computers were going to be checked. Otherwise, investigator's would still be able to get information from the drive. If the guy in this article had blanked his drives before they could be seized, then he's either psychic, got tipped off that someone was coming to investigate, or he really is innocent. Or, now that I think about it, they guy really isn't such a novice and managed to swap out his drive with a blank one before the computers could be seized.
Any way you look at it I think the blanked hard drive will prove to be a huge obstacle for the fine and any additional punishements to be handed down by the legal system.
Ok, so I've not read every single comment on here because I don't have the time to sort through all the "good" comments and opinions and the "flamebait" material.
That being said, I think some people are missing an important point. The WHATWG group is working on a specification for how HTML, CSS, Web Forms, etc are implemented by authors, developers and designers. How is this any different from the specifications being developed by other computer related industries? The ATA specification is currently at version 7 and they are already working on version 8. The SCSI specification is still being "tweaked", even though most people feel that the entire interface is on the way out, soon to be replaced by SAS and possibly Fibre Channel.
My point is that while people may find it frustrating that they're recommending another change to the HTML standard, I think it's a very good thing. It gives everyone a base point from which to work from. Simply based on the number of different tutorials and examples found on the web, there are obviously many, many ways of getting something working the way that you want, so even with a new specification you're not all that limited in how you implement those guidelines.
I, for one, am glad that someone is stepping up to the plate and trying to keep web design in some sort of order. With the number of programming languages available to use and the number of ways each option can be configured, SOMEONE needs to try to bring order out of chaos.
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If the NSA were putting *anything* on computers for tracking, statistics or anything else, don't you think it would be something other than cookies? They have access to all the latest technology (including stuff we've probably never heard of - or were meant to hear of) and the best they can do is cookies?
Also, if they were truly trying to "spy" on people, do you really think that they'd let this story surface in any form? I realize that freedom of speech is granted by the constitution, but speech can't be done if the knowledge manages to....disappear.
You are correct in your description of the utility. There are actually many of them on the market and they all pretty much do the same thing. Depending on the options chosen the utility will write a specific pattern to the drive and render any data on the drive inaccessible (usually even to professional data recovery companies). There are also specific patterns required by the Department of Defense that many of these utilities incorporate.
Doing a normal format on the drive (by using the utilities built into Windows, etc) only eliminates the partition table and indexes, but does not clear the actual data from the drive. With no partition table or indexes, the operating system will eventually over-write those sectors with new data. However, until those sectors are actually used it is possible to get the previous data off of the drive. This can be done with several software data recovery utilities on the market as well.
The only problem I have with the "blanked" hard drive is that those utilities usually take several hours to run (depending on the capacity of the drive). This would mean that someone would have to know ahead of time that their computers were going to be checked. Otherwise, investigator's would still be able to get information from the drive. If the guy in this article had blanked his drives before they could be seized, then he's either psychic, got tipped off that someone was coming to investigate, or he really is innocent. Or, now that I think about it, they guy really isn't such a novice and managed to swap out his drive with a blank one before the computers could be seized.
Any way you look at it I think the blanked hard drive will prove to be a huge obstacle for the fine and any additional punishements to be handed down by the legal system.
Ok, so I've not read every single comment on here because I don't have the time to sort through all the "good" comments and opinions and the "flamebait" material. That being said, I think some people are missing an important point. The WHATWG group is working on a specification for how HTML, CSS, Web Forms, etc are implemented by authors, developers and designers. How is this any different from the specifications being developed by other computer related industries? The ATA specification is currently at version 7 and they are already working on version 8. The SCSI specification is still being "tweaked", even though most people feel that the entire interface is on the way out, soon to be replaced by SAS and possibly Fibre Channel. My point is that while people may find it frustrating that they're recommending another change to the HTML standard, I think it's a very good thing. It gives everyone a base point from which to work from. Simply based on the number of different tutorials and examples found on the web, there are obviously many, many ways of getting something working the way that you want, so even with a new specification you're not all that limited in how you implement those guidelines. I, for one, am glad that someone is stepping up to the plate and trying to keep web design in some sort of order. With the number of programming languages available to use and the number of ways each option can be configured, SOMEONE needs to try to bring order out of chaos.