more on Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Alberti <alberti () sanction net>
Date: June 3, 2006 1:10:47 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago
Reply-To: alberti () sanction net

Has anyone ever tried to drill holes in a hard drive in order to destroy
it?  I have.  Those things are built tough.  As the firm responsible for
destroying the losing defendant's evidence in a multi-billion-dollar
intellectual property case (http://tinyurl.com/ha9xa ), we were ordered
by the court to FIRST use military-grade software to wipe the drives,
and THEN physically destroy the drives.

The most efficient method, after having tried drill presses, spikes, and
simple disassembly, was to prop the drives diagonally against a brick
and bend them in half by smashing them with a sledgehammer.  Once you
get into the rhythm it goes quite quickly.

Having seen neither drill presses or sledgehammers in use in the tech
support areas at Best Buy stores, I would be skeptical of their claims
of physical destruction.

It would be interesting to analyze that drive to see if anyone else was
using it during the period between when it went to Best Buy, and when it
turned up at the garage sale.  We once discovered who stole, and then
returned, a Macintosh from a department at the University of Minnesota
with its drive erased.  We did a hex search of the drive surface for the
words "high score".  There was the name of the thief, one of the
janitors, who confessed when presented with evidence.

Robert Alberti, CISSP, ISSMP, Wielder-of-Sledgehammers
Sanction, Inc.
http://sanction.net


On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 12:54 -0400, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Claudio Gutiérrez <claudio.gutierrez.m () gmail com>
> Date: June 3, 2006 11:52:43 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/wlwt/20060601/lo_wlwt/9303216
>
> A year ago, Henry and Roma Gerbus took their computer to Best Buy in
> Springfield Township to have its hard drive replaced. Henry Gerbus
> said Best Buy assured him the computer's old hard drive -- loaded
> with personal information -- would be destroyed.
>
> "They said rest assured. They drill holes in it so it's useless,"
> said Gerbus.
>
> A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago. "He
> said, 'My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea
> market in Chicago,'" said Gerbus.
>
> <snip>
>
>
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