Hard drives in WTC rubble?

[1337m4n]

Check out this thread (http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2211830485&topic=4570) from a Facebook debate group:

Poor hypothesis for these reasons:

1) Hard drives were recovered from the rubble of the WTC
2) Thousands of bits of paper were left all over downtown NYC for anyone to pick up and read

As has been said, a paper shredder and 'right click, delete' seem a better idea than conducting a bigger demolition than has been achieved before, entirely in secret, in a fully occupied office block.

Far and away the biggest tenant of WTC7 were Solomon Smith-Barney who had some 40 floors of the structure. The CIA were a relatively minor tenant.

Does anyone have any evidence to confirm this statement?

I'd love to see it. It would prove that there is no conceivable motive for demolishing WTC7.

[beachnut]

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll116/tjkb/wtc7t.jpg
Is this about the disk drives?

[1337m4n]

I don't know. Truthers claim that WTC7 was demolished to destroy vital data. If it's true that anything was found in the rubble, that alleged motive is kaput, along with the Truthers' case.

[LashL]

Does anyone have any evidence to confirm this statement?


I don't do facebook so I can't read the link but I think that it might be referring to reports that a German company had successfully recovered data from dozens of hard drives found in the rubble of the WTC and was hopeful about recovering further data from more (hundreds more). I tried to follow up on those reports several years ago but, unfortunately, didn't really get anywhere. The company was, purportedly, Convar Systeme Deutschland GmbH (or, in English, Convar Systems. The GmbH is the equivalent to Inc. or Corp. in North America)

[Slayhamlet]

A number of hard drives were indeed recovered from the WTC in the clean-up. A German data recovery company called Convar was even able to recover some of the data for companies and firms wanting to retrieve their lost records. I'm not sure whether any of the hard drives were recovered from WTC7, though


You can see some pictures of the hard drives and videos (in German) about the data retrieval here (http://www.datarecovery-europe.com/multimedia.htm).

[Confuseling]

Aren't there systems in place to destroy data instantly, in, for example, military compounds? I would have expected so, and see no reason the CIA couldn't use them if needed.

I've heard of intelligence operatives having fireproof bins in their offices with specific instructions to burn certain documents if security is compromised - I can't source that, but see no reason to think it untrue.

Surely the same would apply to hard drives? You'd just have one specifically designed to be capable of wiping itself completely, leaving no 'ghost' bits. I'm not suggesting they're in common use, but I'd be shocked if nobody had invented such a thing.

[Reheat]

Aren't there systems in place to destroy data instantly, in, for example, military compounds? I would have expected so, and see no reason the CIA couldn't use them if needed.

Sure, the technical term for that system is known as a big freaking HAMMER!

I've heard of intelligence operatives having fireproof bins in their offices with specific instructions to burn certain documents if security is compromised - I can't source that, but see no reason to think it untrue.

Sure, they do, they are known as metal trash cans.

Surely the same would apply to hard drives? You'd just have one specifically designed to be capable of wiping itself completely, leaving no 'ghost' bits. I'm not suggesting they're in common use, but I'd be shocked if nobody had invented such a thing.

There is software approved for this purpose, but it must be RUN ON THE HD (multiple times). That takes time and with a big fire scorching your behind it's difficult to concentrate on that type of task. CLASSIFIED material is kept on removable HD's, so those likely would have been removed.

There is no such thing as instant destruction of a HD ala Mission Impossible. When Govt. computers are upgraded or changed the HD's are destroyed, even unclassified ones. There are several approved methods of destruction, but the most common is a big hammer. There are some software programs which wipe them, but that takes time, lots of time.

I dare say there was not time to destroy much in WTC 7. Perhaps a few of the most critical documents were removed or destroyed and since CLASSIFIED material is kept on REMOVABLE HD's I doubt there was classified material on HD's left in WTC 7. However, I would guess there were multiple unclassified HD's in the rubble.

ETA: All Classified material is kept in fireproof safes to include the removable HD's. If there was not time to take the material out of the building it should have been in the safes in the rubble.

[Confuseling]

Is there no physical way - even with minutely sensitive instruments and lots of time - to extract information from a hard drive platter once its been smashed?

Do they really use hammers? Sounds crazy - my assumption was that they'd use a big old magnetic field or something. But if hammers work, hammers work.

[krelnik]

Heck, they recovered a hard drive from the Space Shuttle Columbia! Phil Plait blogged about it yesterday:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/06/now-thats-a-hard-drive/

It had experimental data on it, and the resulting scientific paper was just published:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss (PHOTO of the drive here)

If that's possible, I think it is certainly possible that hard drives with recoverable data existed in the rubble pile. There are companies like Ontrack Data Recovery (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/) that do nothing but recover data from trashed drives.

[BenBurch]

Is there no physical way - even with minutely sensitive instruments and lots of time - to extract information from a hard drive platter once its been smashed?

Do they really use hammers? Sounds crazy - my assumption was that they'd use a big old magnetic field or something. But if hammers work, hammers work.

Well, you COULD map the field on bits of a drive and might get something from it. Were you the CIA and were the drive fragments essential to national security, you could try.

But generally once its not flat none of the tricks the drive recovery people use would apply and you would have to invent some means of moving the sensor over the uneven surface.

Also, striking any ferrous metal with a hammer tends to induce a magnetic field as the atoms align themselves with the Earth's field, so I would expect something like that to go on.

[Reheat]

.......Do they really use hammers? Sounds crazy - my assumption was that they'd use a big old magnetic field or something. But if hammers work, hammers work.

Yes, hammers are really used to smash the platters. It's very efficient!

To my knowledge no magnetic field devices have been approved (maybe someone has later information I'm not aware of) even tho' that would probably work. If you stop to think about it, those devices times thousands of them would be rather expensive. Hammers to smash and software to write 1's and 0's multiple times are, in comparison, reasonably inexpensive.

ETA: I don't known of a way data could be recovered from a smashed platter. It needs to spin to be read. I dare say it's been researched and determined nothing can be recovered as it is an approved method of destruction.

[BenBurch]

... To my knowledge no magnetic field devices have been approved ...

Fire is what some of my employers have used. Just raise the whole thing above the Curie point and you're done.

A hammer is still easier.

[Confuseling]

Thanks - very interesting. I suppose the error in my assumption may have stemmed from instinctive comparison with floppy diskettes. Hard drive platters are rigid, aren't they, so I suppose if you whack one it might well shatter to the point that you lose - as in actually physically lose - enough of the bits that you simply can't reconstitute the information, even if you can manage to piece the thing back together (and of course then there's reading it - I have a hunch the problem is that the read heads float so phenomenally close to the platter that the signal is actually tiny, and a rebuilt platter could never get a head anywhere near it).

When I was thinking of electromagnetics I wasn't thinking so much of a portable device as some kind of room - maybe like an MRI machine - for destroying hard drives en mass. But sometimes the old ways are the best ways :)

[Miragememories]

The controlled demolition of WTC 7 certainly made one heckuva powerful hammer!

MM

[Rob Lister]

Actually, for most non-secure DoD facilities (commercial tenets), TS data is encrypted on the fly when stored to hard drive. Lower classification hard drive data is destroyed as hardware (see below)

Hardware is smashed using the "duty sledge" (a sledgehammer built to precise mil-spec standards such that it identically resembles sledgehammers found in hardware stores everywhere). People are pre-assigned to perform this task should the need arise.

Paper/floppy is burned in a metal trashcan sitting inside another metal trashcan (also built to mil-spec standards). People are pre-assigned to perform this task should the need arise.

[MRC_Hans]

On magnetic destruction: Now, perhaps a little surprisingly, it requires a very strong magnet field to destroy the tiny magnetic "charges" on a HD. The reason is that those small bits of surface were magnetized by an electromagnet in the writing head that is not particularly strong, but very VERY close! So, at a distance of half an inch or so (on the outside of the drive), you'd need a whopping big field to totally erase it: Since the non-magnetized bits are just next to it, and you don't want to just shift the bias level (special equipment could still read the data like a breeze), you would need to drive the whole layer, magnetized and non-magnetized bits alike, well into magnetic saturation.

So, to apply a magnet effectively, you would really need to take apart the drive and apply it directly to the platter, .... at which time, ye good olde hammer would do just as well, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the investment, not to mention a good deal more fun.

Hans

[Confuseling]

...
Paper/floppy is burned in a metal trashcan sitting inside another metal trashcan (also built to mil-spec standards). People are pre-assigned to perform this task should the need arise.

And the Neuralizer is kept behind one of those "Break glass in emergency" panes, although the deterrent provided by the penalty for improper use has been rendered largely ineffectual by significant gaps in witness testimony.

[defaultdotxbe]

On magnetic destruction: Now, perhaps a little surprisingly, it requires a very strong magnet field to destroy the tiny magnetic "charges" on a HD. The reason is that those small bits of surface were magnetized by an electromagnet in the writing head that is not particularly strong, but very VERY close! So, at a distance of half an inch or so (on the outside of the drive), you'd need a whopping big field to totally erase it: Since the non-magnetized bits are just next to it, and you don't want to just shift the bias level (special equipment could still read the data like a breeze), you would need to drive the whole layer, magnetized and non-magnetized bits alike, well into magnetic saturation.

So, to apply a magnet effectively, you would really need to take apart the drive and apply it directly to the platter, .... at which time, ye good olde hammer would do just as well, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the investment, not to mention a good deal more fun.

Hans
we have a degausser at my office, we use it for tapes and floppies, but the label says you can use it for hard drives too, im assumign that would get the job done (although we can only run it for about 5 minutes before it overheats and needs to cool down for an hour, lol)

[Myriad]

In the 70s there was this stuff called something like revealing fluid or disclosing fluid. Presumably it was some kind of suspension of very fine paramagnetic particles in a fast-evaporating liquid. You could brush it on a magnetic tape or disk surface, and the magnetic domains (the bits, as it were) would become visible.

It was mostly used for diagnosing hardware problems that were causing incorrect (e.g. misaligned) writing onto the medium. Using it for data recovery would have been a tedious process at best, even then.

Of course, that was when each bit was at least 1,000,000 times bigger than today. Splashing magnetic particles onto a present-day disk surface would probably, itself, damage the data. Or even if not, it would be exceedingly difficult to read.

Still, given the existence of scanning tunneling microscopes, I can imagine the possibility of devices that could scan and map the surviving data in all the broken pieces of a platter (which would have gaps) and then attempt to extract information (especially text) from it. That's the kind of thing you'd only have to worry about if you're a member of a vast conspiracy trying to keep your most valuable secrets hidden from another, different vast conspiracy. It would be very slow (weeks? months?) and not guaranteed to be able to piece together anything useful.

(However, I'd be surprised if the CSI people -- the TV show, that is -- don't have such a device, that works in seconds, and then immediately displays exactly the information you were looking for.)

Respectfully,
Myriad

[MRC_Hans]

The controlled demolition of WTC 7 certainly made one heckuva powerful hammer!

MMEHr, no. That was sort of the point, if you cared to read the details. It's a little like the proverbial dropping concert piano. Drop it on a man, and he'll be flat as a penny, but drop it on a mouse, and it may survive in one of the nooks that will not happen to touch the ground.

Now, since hard drives have been known to survive the most surprising disasters and be readable, one would hardly plan to get rid of sensitive hard drives by demolishing the building they were in. Especially as simpler and more efficient measures are available. And especially as ANY agency or company that works with sensitive material has a procedure for destroying it.

Hans

[CurtC]

The controlled demolition of WTC 7 certainly made one heckuva powerful hammer!

Not really - as has already been pointed out, data was recovered from hard drives in the WTC towers. The answer that LeetMan is looking for here, is that the worst possible way to try to hide your data is to fell the building that houses it.

By the way, there is now a great free program for Windows PCs to encrypt your hard drive. If someone stole my laptop, they would get a hard drive filled with data indistinguishable from randomness (unless you have the password). The program is TrueCrypt, and I highly recommend it for all NWO employees with laptops: http://www.truecrypt.org/

[DC]

with encrypting it will just take longer to recover the data :)

[Confuseling]

...
(However, I'd be surprised if the CSI people -- the TV show, that is -- don't have such a device, that works in seconds, and then immediately displays exactly the information you were looking for.)

Respectfully,
Myriad

Wouldn't they just take a photo of the remains, then click the 'enhance' button until the data was visible to the naked eye? I really want one of those 'enhance' buttons...

[MRC_Hans]

we have a degausser at my office, we use it for tapes and floppies, but the label says you can use it for hard drives too, im assuming that would get the job done (although we can only run it for about 5 minutes before it overheats and needs to cool down for an hour, lol)Yeah, I know that type. It will certainly erase a drive so that it cannot be read using normal means. Whether it is safe against retrieval specialists is another matter, however.

A little anecdote: Back when blonde jokes were popular, we had one about the blonde who stuck a floppy disk to the message board with a fridge magnet (because she had heard about the blonde who did it with a thumb tack). Just for kicks, we tried it, and guess what? We didn't loose a bit. I actually took a whole sheet of magnetic rubber and stuck a floppy on it, even sliding it along the surface..... It was fully readable afterwards.

Hans

[Confuseling]

Well, you COULD map the field on bits of a drive and might get something from it. Were you the CIA and were the drive fragments essential to national security, you could try.

But generally once its not flat none of the tricks the drive recovery people use would apply and you would have to invent some means of moving the sensor over the uneven surface.

Also, striking any ferrous metal with a hammer tends to induce a magnetic field as the atoms align themselves with the Earth's field, so I would expect something like that to go on.

Ah - sorry. Wasn't ignoring this post in my reply immediately below, I'm having real problems with cacheing (I assume) causing some replies not to display. I write something then discover it's been answered. What can you do?

[rwguinn]

Yeah, I know that type. It will certainly erase a drive so that it cannot be read using normal means. Whether it is safe against retrieval specialists is another matter, however.

A little anecdote: Back when blonde jokes were popular, we had one about the blonde who stuck a floppy disk to the message board with a fridge magnet (because she had heard about the blonde who did it with a thumb tack). Just for kicks, we tried it, and guess what? We didn't loose a bit. I actually took a whole sheet of magnetic rubber and stuck a floppy on it, even sliding it along the surface..... It was fully readable afterwards.

Hans
I'd need evidence for that, as my experience is that floppies are generally unreadable once written...:D

[sts60]

...I dare say there was not time to destroy much in WTC 7. Perhaps a few of the most critical documents were removed or destroyed and since CLASSIFIED material is kept on REMOVABLE HD's I doubt there was classified material on HD's left in WTC 7. However, I would guess there were multiple unclassified HD's in the rubble.

ETA: All Classified material is kept in fireproof safes to include the removable HD's. If there was not time to take the material out of the building it should have been in the safes in the rubble.
Nitpick: In the secure areas where I used to work, the computers (which were either not connected to an external network, or connected via SIPRNET or other secure means) had ordinary non-removable hard drives.

[defaultdotxbe]

Yeah, I know that type. It will certainly erase a drive so that it cannot be read using normal means. Whether it is safe against retrieval specialists is another matter, however.

A little anecdote: Back when blonde jokes were popular, we had one about the blonde who stuck a floppy disk to the message board with a fridge magnet (because she had heard about the blonde who did it with a thumb tack). Just for kicks, we tried it, and guess what? We didn't loose a bit. I actually took a whole sheet of magnetic rubber and stuck a floppy on it, even sliding it along the surface..... It was fully readable afterwards.

Hans
we did a similar experiment with out degausser, took a floppy and tapped it to the surface and lifted it back up as qickly as we can...unreadable (replicated in 20 out of 20 trials, lol)

we also dertermined it can erase a stack up to 4 floppies high

old tapes that have large metal plates get dangerously hot (havent figured out why)

and the thing produces a unique "burnt" smell that we have dubbed "baked data"

[Reheat]

Nitpick: In the secure areas where I used to work, the computers (which were either not connected to an external network, or connected via SIPRNET or other secure means) had ordinary non-removable hard drives.

Well, I've never seen a SIPRNET or a standalone classified computer that did not have removable HD's kept in a safe UNLESS it was a facility cleared for OPEN Classified storage. This is in DoD, but I believe all Federal Agencies are essentially the same.

In fact, the ONLY way that I could envision fixed HD's complying with Classified Protocols is that if the ENTIRE facility were cleared for OPEN Classified storage which WAS NOT the case for any of the WTC Buildings. Essentially, I would argue that your nitpick is irrelevant to this discussion.

I have worked in that type of facility, but that was during the 70's, BEFORE Computers (BC).

[MaGZ]

I have always maintained that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition–not to destroy information in the building–but to protect and retrieved the information on paper and hard drives. The building was pulled and a security perimeter was placed upon it by the National Guard. After search and rescue were completer for the area of the collapsed towers, WTC 7 was given priority for cleanup. In the past I have speculated the remains of WTC 7 was taken to a military base and the hard drives and remaining paper that was not burned in the fires were retrieved.

The CIA offices in WTC 7 were secondary facilities that targeted people who worked at the United Nations. The CIA station for New York City was at another location.

[BenBurch]

I have always maintained that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition–not to destroy information in the building–but to protect and retrieved the information on paper and hard drives. The building was pulled and a security perimeter was placed upon it by the National Guard. After search and rescue were completer for the area of the collapsed towers, WTC 7 was given priority for cleanup. In the past I have speculated the remains of WTC 7 was taken to a military base and the hard drives and remaining paper that was not burned in the fires were retrieved.

The CIA offices in WTC 7 were secondary facilities that targeted people who worked at the United Nations. The CIA station for New York City was at another location.

Asd your shred of proof for that fantasy is?

[Par]

Not really - as has already been pointed out, data was recovered from hard drives in the WTC towers. The answer that LeetMan is looking for here, is that the worst possible way to try to hide your data is to fell the building that houses it. By the way, there is now a great free program for Windows PCs to encrypt your hard drive. If someone stole my laptop, they would get a hard drive filled with data indistinguishable from randomness (unless you have the password). The program is TrueCrypt, and I highly recommend it for all NWO employees with laptops: http://www.truecrypt.org/


There’s also BitLocker, which is native to some of the pricier versions of Windows Vista. That said, if the bleeding-edge technologies sites I read are anything to go by, Microsoft sends universal encryption keys to the GOP, the New World Order and the Jews.

[defaultdotxbe]

There’s also BitLocker, which is native to some of the pricier versions of Windows Vista. That said, if the bleeding-edge technologies sites I read are anything to go by, Microsoft sends universal encryption keys to the GOP, the New World Order and the Jews.
an instructor in a recent class i took on windows security said that in the US its illegal to use any form of encryption the government cant break, he didnt know the exact law offhand but it would be interesting to find

theoretically all encryption is breakable, just might take several lifetimes, lol

[Pushkin]

I have always maintained that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition–not to destroy information in the building–but to protect and retrieved the information on paper and hard drives. The building was pulled and a security perimeter was placed upon it by the National Guard. After search and rescue were completer for the area of the collapsed towers, WTC 7 was given priority for cleanup. In the past I have speculated the remains of WTC 7 was taken to a military base and the hard drives and remaining paper that was not burned in the fires were retrieved.

The CIA offices in WTC 7 were secondary facilities that targeted people who worked at the United Nations. The CIA station for New York City was at another location.

but if protection and retrieval were the goals then why not throw up a security cordon around the damaged building for some spurious but believable reason - we are assessing the structural integrity, we are searching for survivors, body parts from the towers, evidence from the attack etc etc. you could then take whatever you wanted at your evil leisure.

in what screwed up universe does the plan "lets blow up the building and then look for all the sensitive stuff in the rubble pile" look good to you?

[Kestrel]

an instructor in a recent class i took on windows security said that in the US its illegal to use any form of encryption the government cant break, he didnt know the exact law offhand but it would be interesting to find

theoretically all encryption is breakable, just might take several lifetimes, lol

The government gave up trying to control strong encryption years ago.

They found another way to get the data. Rather than use brute force attacks on the encrypted data, the spooks simply install hardware or software that captures the users password.

[DGM]

in what screwed up universe does the plan "lets blow up the building and then look for all the sensitive stuff in the rubble pile" look good to you?

And the "nail on the head" award for today goes to.........

[BenBurch]

And the "nail on the head" award for to day goes to.........

Fawn Hall and Oliver "felon" North managed to do a nice destruction job without a controlled demolition, after all.

[BenBurch]

... theoretically all encryption is breakable, just might take several lifetimes, lol

Not true!!!

Real "one-time pads" are unbreakable even in principle without the pad. And if the sending pad is burned at transmission and the receiving pad is burned after decoding, and no surreptitious copies were made, you cannot crack the communication you intercepted.

[sts60]

Well, I've never seen a SIPRNET or a standalone classified computer that did not have removable HD's kept in a safe UNLESS it was a facility cleared for OPEN Classified storage. This is in DoD, but I believe all Federal Agencies are essentially the same.
Our project was at a USAF base, with most of the development work going on at our contractor facility (I worked in the limited area and used our classified PCs and network). The entire building, bathrooms included, was at a higher clearance level. (Amusingly enough, though, when construction was completed but before data was put in there, USAF kindly had an open house and picnic for the contractor families. So the project itself was no secret.)
In fact, the ONLY way that I could envision fixed HD's complying with Classified Protocols is that if the ENTIRE facility were cleared for OPEN Classified storage which WAS NOT the case for any of the WTC Buildings. Essentially, I would argue that your nitpick is irrelevant to this discussion...
Nitpick-irrelevancy cheerfully stipulated. :)

Anyway, I didn't think it was possible for the lunacy of "WTC 7 was blown up to destroy documents" to be exceeded. But it has indeed been topped by the surreal "WTC 7 was blown up so that the documents could be removed."

Words fail me.

[Confuseling]

Not true!!!

Real "one-time pads" are unbreakable even in principle without the pad. And if the sending pad is burned at transmission and the receiving pad is burned after decoding, and no surreptitious copies were made, you cannot crack the communication you intercepted.

As long as you can't crack the pseudo-random number algorithm used to generate the key.

[BenBurch]

As long as you can't crack the pseudo-random number algorithm used to generate the key.

That's why you don't use one of those.

You use an image of a lava-lamp running, and derive a seed from that that changes each cycle.

Seriously.

[EDIT] Example here; http://www.lavarnd.org/

[Reheat]

Our project was at a USAF base, with most of the development work going on at our contractor facility (I worked in the limited area and used our classified PCs and network). The entire building, bathrooms included, was at a higher clearance level. (Amusingly enough, though, when construction was completed but before data was put in there, USAF kindly had an open house and picnic for the contractor families. So the project itself was no secret.)

Yes, there are frequently secure buildings on USAF bases with open storage up to SECRET level. I don't know of any facility where TS or above is openly stored.

I would guess most of the stuff in WTC 7 was no higher than Confidential/Eyes Only/No Foreign Dissemination, etc. Not real important stuff.

Anyway, I didn't think it was possible for the lunacy of "WTC 7 was blown up to destroy documents" to be exceeded. But it has indeed been topped by the surreal "WTC 7 was blown up so that the documents could be removed."

Words fail me.

Yes, the idea is right up there with the looniest of the loony, but somehow they always manage to exceed expectations!

There are so many asinine ideas it would be difficult for me to pick the most outrageous. There are plenty of them....

[gumboot]

If you want to destroy hard drives:

Use this (http://gizmodo.com/386216/hard-drive-crusher-how-much-would-you-spend-to-secure-your-data)

The device runs off a standard 110V outlet, but if you are ever caught in a disk-destroying emergency and the power goes out, just bust out the optional $895 hand pump accessory and keep on crushin' in the dark.

So even that 36hr power down wouldn't have been a hindrance.

[ktesibios]

In the 70s there was this stuff called something like revealing fluid or disclosing fluid. Presumably it was some kind of suspension of very fine paramagnetic particles in a fast-evaporating liquid. You could brush it on a magnetic tape or disk surface, and the magnetic domains (the bits, as it were) would become visible.


There was a product called "Mag-View", which was an aerosol can containing very fine particles of carbonyl iron suspended in a fast-drying fluorocarbon vehicle. When you sprayed it on a piece of recorded magnetic tape the track placement would become visible. If you recorded a tone and developed the tape with Mag-View you could even see the recorded waveform, like a lot of little bar magnets lined up next to each other, like this: ||||||||.

It was used in checking and adjusting head height, especially for digital reel-to-reel machines and was also used in editing 2" quad videotape. Since the head scans on quad were transverse rather than helical, developing the tape permitted the editor to place his razor blade cut in between two head scans.

Mag-View was off the market by the mid-'90s, but I think that there's someone making a similar product now.

we did a similar experiment with out degausser, took a floppy and tapped it to the surface and lifted it back up as qickly as we can...unreadable (replicated in 20 out of 20 trials, lol)

we also dertermined it can erase a stack up to 4 floppies high

old tapes that have large metal plates get dangerously hot (havent figured out why)

and the thing produces a unique "burnt" smell that we have dubbed "baked data"

The heating is probably due to the degausser inducing eddy currents in the metal plate, which cause resistive heating.

What a bulk eraser can do depends on the coercivity of the magnetic medium to be erased. Back when I worked at Sigma Sound we had a bulk eraser that could wipe a reel of 2" analog tape. I was once asked to see if it could be used to bulk erase RDAT tapes. After 5 minutes of rubbing the things right on the eraser's electromagnet core, I found that the tapes all played back just fine. There was a slight increase in the error rate, but it was nothing the player's error correction circuitry couldn't handle.

[Hamradioguy]

Yes, hammers are really used to smash the platters. It's very efficient!


Not good enough when I was in the Air Force working in the Minuteman Missile program. On rare occasions the D37 computer in the missile, which contained all the target information, would fail. One of the more sought after jobs was a temporary duty assignmeent for an officer to accompany the computer back to the AF's Heath Facility in Ohio, where he would witness the hard drive being extracted from the computer and dunked in an acid bath.

[Corsair 115]

...where he would witness the hard drive being extracted from the computer and dunked in an acid bath.Shoot, why not drop it into a pool of molten steel like at the end of Terminator 2? :D

[BenBurch]

Shoot, why not drop it into a pool of molten steel like at the end of Terminator 2? :D

That's basically what my former employer did. They put it into a forge's furnace.

Now this was convenient because they HAD an active forge.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

There are companies out there that offer serious hard drive disposal services for organizations worried about sensitive data (governments and major institutions, likes banks, have strict hard drive disposal policies). I'm not talking specialized sledgehammers or even a thorough wipe of the drive. I mean out-right shredding of the drive itself:

http://www.semshred.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/1fa40d4e151e0485a1d8f9147a81ff38/full/harddrive_destruction_big.jpg

http://www.semshred.com/content291.html

Destruction Rates:
1 to 25 Hard Drives = $7 per Drive, 26 to 100 Hard Drives = $5 per Drive, 101 to 250 Hard Drives = $4 per Drive, 251 to 500 Hard Drives = $3 per Drive, 500+ Hard Drives = Please Call for Pricing
DoD particle sizes are also available. Note: minimum destruction charge is $50.00


If the government were trying to get rid of sensitive data, this sure seems like a far, far, far, far, far, far cheaper and much more subtle way of going about it...

[Dan O.]

I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out this obvious way to destroy a hard drive:<link (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4147847319296070400)>

[Dave Rogers]

Mag-View was off the market by the mid-'90s, but I think that there's someone making a similar product now.

It's called MaGZ-View. Sales slumped in early 2002 after users found out that you had to demolish the building before it would work properly.

Dave

[Pushkin]

It's called MaGZ-View. Sales slumped in early 2002 after users found out that you had to demolish the building before it would work properly.

Dave

"are you tired of smashing your hard drives with hammers? fed up with endless acid baths and fluids. Why not use MaGZ-View. For just $45,000 we come and rig your whole building..yes your whole building and do the job simply and efficiently. No fuss, lots of mess.
MaGZ-View ..years of data gone in an instant!"

in a really fast postscript
please note service does not include retrieving the pieces from the rubble pile.

[CurtC]

As long as you can't crack the pseudo-random number algorithm used to generate the key.

He did say "real" one-time pads, which would indicate that he used a true random number generator.

See http://www.random.org/


ETA: I now see there is a page two!

[Confuseling]

He did say "real" one-time pads, which would indicate that he used a true random number generator.

See http://www.random.org/


ETA: I now see there is a page two!

Aha - that was a distinction I wasn't aware of. Cheers, and my apologies to Ben.

[1337m4n]

I think we've established that there was no discernible motive for going through so much trouble to destroy this building.

To any fence-sitters who might be lurking, this should throw the "prosecution's" case into serious question.

[BenBurch]

Aha - that was a distinction I wasn't aware of. Cheers, and my apologies to Ben.

no problems.

[fezzic]

I have always maintained that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition–not to destroy information in the building–but to protect and retrieved the information on paper and hard drives. The building was pulled and a security perimeter was placed upon it by the National Guard. After search and rescue were completer for the area of the collapsed towers, WTC 7 was given priority for cleanup. In the past I have speculated the remains of WTC 7 was taken to a military base and the hard drives and remaining paper that was not burned in the fires were retrieved.

The CIA offices in WTC 7 were secondary facilities that targeted people who worked at the United Nations. The CIA station for New York City was at another location.


I see. Blow up a building thereby scattering its contents in a random and uncontrolled manner over a sizeable area, not to forget a fair amount will be destroyed and hence be unrecoverable, then having to secure the area in order to collect the items, as opposed to securing (access to) the building and thereby keeping all those classified documents and hard drives contained within the offices they were in where they can be picked up by authorized personnel. Right.

I am sure NYPD would have cooperated with securing 7 WTC if the government has asked them to help protect information vital to the National Security (whether that was literally true or not). FDNY would have cooperated. Heck, even Silverstein would have cooperated and it was HIS building. Anybody doubt that?

Ok, I can think of at least one who would... :)

[MRC_Hans]

I'd need evidence for that, as my experience is that floppies are generally unreadable once written...:DWell, I once had a floppy-drive like that :rolleyes:

Hans

[MRC_Hans]

old tapes that have large metal plates get dangerously hot (havent figured out why)

Eddy currents inducted into the metal plates. Just like an induction stove.

Hans

[ref]

Here is a photo of one hard drive they were inspecting.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1363948246cf48966a.jpg

[aggle-rithm]

Eddy currents inducted into the metal plates. Just like an induction stove.

Hans

"Who, exactly, then, is Eddy, then?"

[realitybites]

Although this is from a different tragedy...

Apparently a scientist was able to recover 99% of the data from a molten hard drive recovered from the Columbia disaster (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/09/columbia.data.ap/index.htmlhttp://).

One would think a government bent on destroying information would be aware of what can be recovered from the seemingly unrecoverable. Demolishing a building to dispose of some hard drives is just ridiculous.

[DGM]

Although this is from a different tragedy...

Apparently a scientist was able to recover 99% of the data from a molten hard drive recovered from the Columbia disaster (http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/09/columbia.data.ap/index.htmlhttp://).

One would think a government bent on destroying information would be aware of what can be recovered from the seemingly unrecoverable. Demolishing a building to dispose of some hard drives is just ridiculous.
Columbia was February of 2003. They wouldn't know this yet. :p

[ref]

One would think a government bent on destroying information would be aware of what can be recovered from the seemingly unrecoverable. Demolishing a building to dispose of some hard drives is just ridiculous.

Also ridicilous, the companies that wanted to recover the data from the hard drives were working together with the FBI to piece together what happened. So the FBI wanted to recover the same data they (government officials) supposedly wanted to destroy. How stupid is that.

[DC]

according to Henschel, the Director of Convars, they worked mostly for companys

and it was because of the suspect transactions shortly before and after the plane impacts.

source (http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,173404,00.html)

[ref]

according to Henschel, the Director of Convars, they worked mostly for companys

and it was because of the suspect transactions shortly before and after the plane impacts.

source (http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,173404,00.html)

From your link:

"Nach Angaben von Henschel arbeiten die Unternehmen, für die Convar Datenbestände rekonstruiert, mit dem FBI zusammen, um ein komplettes Bild der Finanztransaktionen am 11."

mit dem FBI zusammen = together with the FBI

[aggle-rithm]

"are you tired of smashing your hard drives with hammers? fed up with endless acid baths and fluids. Why not use MaGZ-View. For just $45,000 we come and rig your whole building..yes your whole building and do the job simply and efficiently. No fuss, lots of mess.
MaGZ-View ..years of data gone in an instant!"

in a really fast postscript
please note service does not include retrieving the pieces from the rubble pile.

The amazing thing about this service is that they can rig the building a night and without disturbing any of the walls or office furniture. Your employees can keep working without disruption!

Well, until the building is blown up, that is.

[aggle-rithm]

"Who, exactly, then, is Eddy, then?"

No one has commented on my obscure "Hitchhiker" reference!

I HATE it when that happens!

[Confuseling]

We have been listening. But we're not sure it's helped.

[BenBurch]

From your link:

"Nach Angaben von Henschel arbeiten die Unternehmen, für die Convar Datenbestände rekonstruiert, mit dem FBI zusammen, um ein komplettes Bild der Finanztransaktionen am 11."

mit dem FBI zusammen = together with the FBI

See, he gave you a link he hadn't even read himself.

Typical truther tactic; He thought it would be opaque to you because it was in a foreign language.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

No one has commented on my obscure "Hitchhiker" reference!

I HATE it when that happens!


Well, that's because I just got back to this thread. I was going to comment, since I had [re]read that part of the book just last night... :)