I want to destroy my CDs !

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2005 at 11:39:41PM -0500, David J Patrick wrote:
> Yes, it's true ! Not all of them, of course, only a collection of 
> personal data back-up CDs that I have been making for the past few 
> years. The data is as salvaged as it's ever going to be, and everything 
> important is in newer backups, but these coasters have /way/ too much 
> information on 'em.
> I've tried scoring them with a razor, only to release a hail of 
> undoubtedly toxic silver snow. Maybe I should just scratch up the other 
> side ? How would you best render sensitive data CDs unreadable ?
> And while we're at it, what is an environmentally conscious fella to do 
> with a rather large sack of unloved coasters ?

I have seen "shredders" for CDs for sale, which esentially just cut
indentations into the surface of the CD which is a rather permanent way
to make them unreadably.  Scratching may actually not do enough.

Now another method might be to freeze the CDs or throw them in a snow
pile.  Some years ago a friend was playing frisbee with a coaster out in
the snow, and the metal layor on the CD-R disintegrated when the CD got
cold (I guess the metal and plastic have very different
expansion/contraction rates).  Sure wasn't anyway that disk was getting
to be read ever again given the dye and metal layer was gone and the CD
simply had a clear piece of plastic left.

Lennart Sorensen
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