4 ms·

Sounds like a coil of heating wire around the chips that's triggered by cryogenic temperatures entering the computer case (or the PC's case being opened) would

Sounds like a coil of heating wire around the chips that's triggered by cryogenic temperatures entering the computer case (or the PC's case being opened) would keep their secrets safe. I.e. if triggered, motherboard power is cut off, and the LiIon battery dumps power through the heating wire and quickly bakes the chips to 500 degrees.

irixusr 11y ago
And it's not a very complicated circuit either.
- Johnny555 11y ago
  Much easier than having to stay within easy reach of the computer's power switch at all times. Though I suspect that there are a very limited number of people in the world that actually face a threat of police coming into their home with a flask of liquid nitrogen to try to do a key recovery of latent data in RAM. This is probably the same set of people that are worried that someone will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with an electron microscope to try to recover data from their hard drive. I'd bet that most people that think they are in this risk category do not have strong enough security practices to prevent data from being cracked by other means.
mikeash 11y ago
Might as well take this to the logical conclusion and have some thermite set to go off if anyone tampers with the case.
- jfindley 11y ago
  There was an interesting experiment done on this at a DEFCON a few years back[1]. Thermite, even the more explosive copper-based variant, is pretty poor at destroying disk platters, sadly. Explosives or cutting equipment seem to be better, although the magnitude of the engineering challenge obviously increases. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Cool, I'll definitely have to watch that. Thanks for the link! Here's an alternate idea: rather than messing around with chemical explosives, how about filling the computer with poisonous snakes?
- Johnny555 11y ago
  The problem with an explosive device is then you're facing attempted murder charges when it's discovered.

irixusr 11y ago

And it's not a very complicated circuit either.

Johnny555 11y ago
Much easier than having to stay within easy reach of the computer's power switch at all times. Though I suspect that there are a very limited number of people in the world that actually face a threat of police coming into their home with a flask of liquid nitrogen to try to do a key recovery of latent data in RAM. This is probably the same set of people that are worried that someone will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with an electron microscope to try to recover data from their hard drive. I'd bet that most people that think they are in this risk category do not have strong enough security practices to prevent data from being cracked by other means.

mikeash 11y ago

Might as well take this to the logical conclusion and have some thermite set to go off if anyone tampers with the case.

jfindley 11y ago
There was an interesting experiment done on this at a DEFCON a few years back[1]. Thermite, even the more explosive copper-based variant, is pretty poor at destroying disk platters, sadly. Explosives or cutting equipment seem to be better, although the magnitude of the engineering challenge obviously increases. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y
- mikeash 11y ago
  Cool, I'll definitely have to watch that. Thanks for the link! Here's an alternate idea: rather than messing around with chemical explosives, how about filling the computer with poisonous snakes?
Johnny555 11y ago
The problem with an explosive device is then you're facing attempted murder charges when it's discovered.