[ale] Drive recovery

[James P. Kinney III]

It's amazing how effective an alternating 2T magnetic field is at
rendering a hard drive platter _VERY_ blank.

2 minutes at ~60Hz @ 2T. The buzzing noise is the armature vibrating
back and forth inside the case striking the case and the platter.

Not only will this reduce the platter to a useless mass it will also
totally destroy the electronics pack and magnetize any hints of iron
atoms anywhere in the structure rendering the entire unit useless.

In DC mode, 2T will hold a full height drive suspended on the face of
the magnet pole. Any body part between the drive and magnet will be
seriously pinched. At 8", a 10" crescent wrench is pulled out of a good
grip.

On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 10:26 -0400, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
> 
> Greg Freemyer wrote:
> > 
> > I've heard the rumors that CIA / NSA / etc. can do this and I have
> > little reason to doubt it, but I imagine they can only get little
> > fragments of data, not full recovery.
> > 
> > FYI: The biggest support for this capability existing is the DOD
> > wiping requirement that requires multiple passes.  If technology does
> > not exist to read data after a single over-write, then the DOD
> > requirement is overly strict.
> > 
> 
> I know that there are some places (my work place included) that only
> permit degaussing as an approved means of destroying confidential data
> on drives.  While perhaps that is overly paranoid, at the very least it
> works.
> 
> 	- Mike
> 
> - --
> Michael B. Trausch                                     fd0man at gmail.com
> Web: http://fd0man.theunixplace.com/        Jabber: mtrausch at jabber.com
> Phone: +1-(678)-522-7934                  FAX (US Only): 1-866-806-4647
> =======================================================================
>   Do you have PGP or GPG?  Key at pgp.mit.edu, Please Encrypt E-Mail!
> 
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> 
> iD8DBQFCqFGoPXInbkqM7nwRA6VxAJ9q0bY1iNAyPq8SxmjG3D/4Ah3tZQCff59G
> 1OpKZPhqlQbOI9fvlfQFCmk=
> =pzzu
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part