sanitizing disc

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2014-02-03 at 02:40 +0000, Liam Proven wrote:
> DBAN is the tool of choice.
> 
> *More* secure than taking a hammer to it. Data can still be recovered from that.

If you pulverise the platters and shatter the chips, there is no way to
recover more than the odd bit or two, and that only if you are lucky and
at very high cost in time and effort. Whereas any software process by
definition can only destroy what the drive allows to be destroyed. DBAN
does nothing that shred doesn't do in that regard (as far as I can tell
- happy to be corrected if DBAN takes special technical steps).

>From my reading, and with respect to modern disks, a single overwrite
with random data is ample protection against anything but an expensive
and sophisticated attack. If you have data that is so valuable you are
actually concerned about an expensive and sophisticated attack, you
should destroy the drive. Shredding it (physically) is a good move,
especially if the shreds are then widely dispersed. But for all but the
most obsessively paranoid - or possessed of the most amazingly sensitive
data - four or five blows with a sledgehammer will do the job just fine.
And it's MUCH quicker than using DBAN or shred, plus it requires only
the cheapest of support hardware.

Of course, the TRULY obsessive will run DBAN or shed *then* destroy the
drive :-)

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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