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How secure was that deletion of the tape? Has anyone taken 21st century technology and tried to recover what was on it?
by danielweber 11y ago
How secure was that deletion of the tape? Has anyone taken 21st century technology and tried to recover what was on it?
- larrys 11y agoA good question but keep in mind that in addition to the deletion it is a tape that is about 42 years old as well and has further degraded.
- xefer 11y agoI remember reading about a concerted effort several years ago to try to recover the lost tape: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/nixon_pr.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/nixon_pr.html But the last I heard, they were not able to get anything useful.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoThey were not able to actually obtain enough access to the tape to do anything useful.
- scott_karana 11y agoThat's a fantastic question. If we can use electron microscopes to recover trace data from hard drive platters, how much harder could magnetic tape be?
- Zigurd 11y agoI have not heard of a documented case of erased/overwritten data recovered from a hard drive. I have read articles, like this one, debunking the idea: http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-guttman.html http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-guttman.html This is not to say it's the same as recovering audio from analog tape.
- scott_karana 11y agoGood to know. Didn't realize I believed in a myth :)
- ams6110 11y agoWe're talking about recording equipment used by the President, not an average Dictaphone tape. It was likely erased VERY thoroughly.
- srtjstjsj 11y agoWe're talking about 40-year-old technology, though. Modern forensic tools are extremely powerful.
- danielweber 11y agoAccording to the Official Story, it was just a normal erasure accidentally done by a secretary who was transcribing it. I don't necessarily buy that story, but a thorough analysis could shed some evidence on that, too.