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Depending on your threat model, a drill isn't even the right tool. This will significantly complicate data recovery and render data where the drill impacts it
by ashleyn 2y ago
Depending on your threat model, a drill isn't even the right tool.
This will significantly complicate data recovery and render data where the drill impacts it destroyed, but it will in theory still be possible to decap/analyse platters or nand with a SEM microscope and reconstruct data off the surviving parts of the storage medium.
The cost may not be worth it even to some state actors, but such a cost is peanuts to the NSA, CIA, or any other organisation tasked with geopolitical standing. Depending on who's after you, they may even pass it to these organisations to get the data for them at cut-rate.
Only sure-fire way is to toss it in one of those big grinders data destruction companies like Iron Mountain have. They even let you watch it go in.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago> They even let you watch it go in. I wonder if/when there's a data destruction company that employs professional magicians, who swap out the drives from under you at some point, while you watch "your" drive going into the grinder, never the wiser.
- walterbell 2y ago> professional magicians Centuries of prior art on disappearing!
- Gare 2y agoWould thermite be enough?
- buildbot 2y agoIn what situation is thermite _not_ enough (Given enough thermite)? Melting tungsten?
- peddling-brink 2y agoWhen all you have is a bunch-of-thermite..
- spacecadet 2y agoThis is the way. lol
- pixl97 2y agoSome number of years ago there was someone that built a smelter and melted down the drives. Not sure everything melted but getting anything glowing hot demagnitizes it.
- rsync 2y ago"Only sure-fire way is to toss it in one of those big grinders data destruction companies like Iron Mountain have. They even let you watch it go in." This is what rsync.net does with drives that need to stop existing. I do, indeed, watch it go in and I strongly recommend a canister respirator when entering a shredding/destruction facility. I cannot believe the operators of these devices - which are pulverizing glass and circuitry, among other things - don't wear lung protection as they stand over the machine-turning-drive-into-dust. To my sibling who wondered about sleight of hand: I can only speak for the machine I take drives to but it is an immediate and brutal reaction with sparks flying and pieces flying up ... and sometimes the machine jams and they back it out and re-feed it ... there is no question as to what is occurring to that specific drive.
- akira2501 2y ago> with a SEM microscope Not so much anymore. Increasing data density and the two step nature of the technique make it much less applicable. There are newer techniques but they're more expensive and much more sensitive to the physical state of the media being scanned. I mean this is probably why the CIA and NSA spend so much on tailored access operations and on zero day vulnerabilities instead. Not only is it easier to get the data in flight but it's much more likely to be timely for their purposes.