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Hmm... mike4ty4 09-25-2006
Posted by on September 25, 2006, 4:47 am
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Hi.

I saw this:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.hardware/msg/dc0d19d1d233f2b7

Could there be any way to induce this on demand as part of a hard drive
self destruct sequence?


Posted by Moe Trin on September 25, 2006, 8:25 pm
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On 25 Sep 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article
wrote:

>I saw this:
>
>http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.hardware/msg/dc0d19d1d233f2b7
>
>Could there be any way to induce this on demand as part of a hard drive
>self destruct sequence?

What part of the article are you referring to? A head crash on a "modern"
drive is pretty rare. If you're referring to

We once had a head crash on a bunch of systems where a head touched a
platter, crashing that track. The dust it threw up caused all the rest of
the heads on that drive (ten two-sided disks) to crash: 20 dead heads.

and

Unfortunately, the problem escalated since it was a weekend and no one was
on duty. The dust ultimately got out of those disk drives and crashed the
three disk drives on each of the other systems in that room. I think we
lost about 24 hard drives before anyone got in there on a Monday morning.

you should be aware that Jean-David is a dinosaur, and the clue might be

These days we would just replace the hard drives, but in those days a
hard drive cost between $10,000 and $40,000 (depends on just when).

That was more than a few weeks ago, and the disk technology has changed
just a bit - those were _probably_ RM03s, with a capacity of 67 Megabytes
and the platters were 14 inch diameter. The media was what amounted to be
iron oxide _glued_ to an aluminum disk, verses todays plated or sputtered
film a few millionths of an inch thick. Shock, and dust (even something
as fine as cigarette smoke) was all it took back then.

Old guy

Posted by on September 29, 2006, 9:00 pm
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Moe Trin wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article
> wrote:
>
> >I saw this:
> >
> >http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.hardware/msg/dc0d19d1d233f2b7
> >
> >Could there be any way to induce this on demand as part of a hard drive
> >self destruct sequence?
>
> What part of the article are you referring to? A head crash on a "modern"
> drive is pretty rare. If you're referring to
>
> We once had a head crash on a bunch of systems where a head touched a
> platter, crashing that track. The dust it threw up caused all the rest of
> the heads on that drive (ten two-sided disks) to crash: 20 dead heads.
>
> and
>
> Unfortunately, the problem escalated since it was a weekend and no one was
> on duty. The dust ultimately got out of those disk drives and crashed the
> three disk drives on each of the other systems in that room. I think we
> lost about 24 hard drives before anyone got in there on a Monday morning.
>
> you should be aware that Jean-David is a dinosaur, and the clue might be
>
> These days we would just replace the hard drives, but in those days a
> hard drive cost between $10,000 and $40,000 (depends on just when).
>
> That was more than a few weeks ago, and the disk technology has changed
> just a bit - those were _probably_ RM03s, with a capacity of 67 Megabytes
> and the platters were 14 inch diameter. The media was what amounted to be
> iron oxide _glued_ to an aluminum disk, verses todays plated or sputtered
> film a few millionths of an inch thick. Shock, and dust (even something
> as fine as cigarette smoke) was all it took back then.
>
> Old guy

But is it possible to INDUCE a crash somehow? Can a crash on a "modern"
drive do that type of damage? What I want is a mechanism inside a
computer
that will achieve the following once activated:

1. Destroy all the data on the system to "military-level", ie. not even
the
US Government could recover the data from the drives. This means
physical destruction of the magnetic media. A good head crash that
scrubs off all the magnetic material ought to do that. There's some
pictures here of someone that had something close to this happen:

http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~ken/crash/

Note how the platter was scrubbed all the way down to the glass
substrate. I want a way to get that to happen on demand, and
to get the WHOLE THING transparent (unlike the pics where some
stuff survived). And it has to be FAST (at most the lifespan of a
battery-backup power supply).

2. Disassemble the computer chassis, casing, etc. so the parts are
separated to some degree. This might involve cutting the wirepacks too.

Not only does this make the computer hard to use, it also makes it
easier to manage the waste because there's less manual labor involved
in dismantling the system. This describes what I'm thinking about, only
it would be part of the computer death process:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/innovative_gadg.php

3. Safety. Thermite, etc. are not options as those would probably burn
down the building the thing is in. I want the computer destroyed but
with
little or no harm to the surroundings.

Anyway, that's what I want.


Posted by Walter Roberson on September 30, 2006, 6:31 am
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>But is it possible to INDUCE a crash somehow? Can a crash on a "modern"
>drive do that type of damage? What I want is a mechanism inside a
>computer
>that will achieve the following once activated:

>1. Destroy all the data on the system to "military-level", ie. not even
>the
>US Government could recover the data from the drives. This means
>physical destruction of the magnetic media. A good head crash that
>scrubs off all the magnetic material ought to do that.

No, typical modern drives are rated to about 100 g, and their
control logic has been moved onto the drive where you can't get to it
to force it to misbehave.

At the very least, you'd need custom control logic -- and I doubt
highly that you'd be able to arrange the head crash to get -all- of
the media in that case.

High security installations apparently use expensive high-security
drives, and don't mind using solid state instead of magnetic media,
and don't mind using an EMP pulse to erase data. Watch out with
solid state, though, as typical DRAM does -not- lose all of its
information immediately; a paper was published a couple of years ago
showing that you could recover a fair bit of information if you could
get power back to the chips within a short time (on the order of 5 minutes.)


>3. Safety. Thermite, etc. are not options as those would probably burn
>down the building the thing is in. I want the computer destroyed but
>with little or no harm to the surroundings.

Then you don't want your security enough. If the information is not
valuable enough to be worth risking a few lives, then it isn't valuable
enough to worry about making it impossible for the US government
to recover -any- of it.


If you are storing officially classified information that was legally
obtained, then the information-holding authorization was
conditional upon following official storage and disposal practices.
If you don't know what those disposal practices are then ask up
the chain. I won't tell you what they are: "Those who tell, don't know.
And those who know, can't tell."

If you are holding classified information for the US government,
then you don't worry about destroying it to the point that the
US government cannot recover it: you worry about destroying it to
the point that -other- governments or organizations can't recover it.
And you'd follow official procedures, however long they took; and
if you were in a covert intelligence situation then you'd have
access to experts on protecting the data.

If you are holding classified information for a country that
cannot permit the US government to see any of it, then follow the
procedures and technologies approved by that country.

If the data is -not- officially classified, but it is still vitally
important that the US government not be able to recover any of it...
the only kind of highly sensitive information I can think of that is
not a product of illegalities is certain human rights related information
(historically, the US has sometimes backed repressive regimes). If
you are operating in the shadow area where what you are doing is
legal but sensitive enough that some part of the US government
might realistically Be Out To Get You, then you probably need to worry
about a lot more than hard drives -- why bother to seize a computer
when putting a bug on it (or on you) might be nearly as useful?

Posted by Moe Trin on September 30, 2006, 3:47 pm
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On Sat, 30 Sep 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.misc, in article

>If you are storing officially classified information that was legally
>obtained, then the information-holding authorization was
>conditional upon following official storage and disposal practices.

Absolutely.

>If you don't know what those disposal practices are then ask up
>the chain. I won't tell you what they are: "Those who tell, don't know.
>And those who know, can't tell."

That might be the case in Canada, but it sure as hell is NOT the case here.
NISPROM spells it out fairly clearly, and even though it's an old document,
it is available as close as the nearest Internet search engine..

>If you are holding classified information for the US government,
>then you don't worry about destroying it to the point that the
>US government cannot recover it: you worry about destroying it to
>the point that -other- governments or organizations can't recover it.
>And you'd follow official procedures, however long they took;

and no matter how dangerous they might be/appear to be.

>If the data is -not- officially classified, but it is still vitally
>important that the US government not be able to recover any of it...
>the only kind of highly sensitive information I can think of that is
>not a product of illegalities is certain human rights related information
>(historically, the US has sometimes backed repressive regimes).

I suspect the O/P is using unspecified parts of the US government as a
measure of how much the opponent may be able to go to recover the data.

>If you are operating in the shadow area where what you are doing is
>legal but sensitive enough that some part of the US government
>might realistically Be Out To Get You, then you probably need to worry
>about a lot more than hard drives -- why bother to seize a computer
>when putting a bug on it (or on you) might be nearly as useful?

And then, the data may merely be evidence of common criminal activities
and the O/P doesn't want to spend some time in the slammer - no matter
what the country.

Old guy


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