Re: Interesting One

[ATD <simon () snosoft com>]

I have heard similar claims from "agencies" about the ability to recover
data after multiple re-writes. I also happen to know that several of
these "agencies" when doing drive disposal, literally drill holes in
their drives then incinerate them. That is after they wipe the drive
clean several times. I'd assume that there is a reason for such
paranoia, wouldn't you?  Or do you think they are just playing it super
safe?


On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 15:57, Carol Stone wrote:
> I don't know much about this, but yesterday I read in one of the later 
> chapters of Bruce Schneier's book, "Secrets and Lies," (link to amazon 
> follows) that over-writing data on a disk does *not* completely 
> obliterate it, it just makes it a lot more difficult to recover with 
> each over-write. I believe he said just how many re-writes were still 
> recoverable was a secret one of our governmental organizations wasn't 
> about to give up.  I'll look at my book later when I have it in my 
> hands and see if I can't find part and post a pointer to *his* 
> reference.
>
> -carol
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
> /0471253111/qid=1035924654/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_3/104-4454644-5987143?
> v=glance&n=507846
>
> > Greetings Folks,
> >
> > I had an interesting conversation today with someone from FAST
> > (Federation
> > Against Software Theft) They pretend not to be a snitch wing of the 
> BSA.
> > Anyway, to get to the point, the guy that came to see me said that 
> their
> > forensics guys could read data off a hard drive that had been written
> > over
> > up to thirty times. I find this very hard to believe and told him I
> > thought
> > he was mistaken but the guy was adamant that it could be done. My
> > question
> > is, does anyone have any views on this, or, can anyone point me to a
> > source
> > of information where I can get the facts on exactly how much data can 
> be
> > retrieved off a hard drive and under what conditions etc etc.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Dave Adams
> >  
> >  
> >  
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-- 

-ATD-

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