shredding files on a flash drive

[Jamon Camisso]

Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:
> On Jan 25, 2008 11:00 AM, James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> Can you be so certain?  Many years ago, I used to maintain mini-computer
>> systems, including disk drives.  There were many times I would repair a
>> drive after a head crash and then do an alignment of the heads etc.
>> When you do that, one thing that's obvious is that the data is recorded
>> in clearly identifiable tracks, which you can locate by watching the
>> recovered signal with an oscilloscope.  What's to stop someone from
>> reassembling those platters in a similar drive and, with perhaps some
>> effort, recovering that data?  It may be difficult, but I not
>> impossible.  I know it's possible to align a drive to the data on a
>> disk, because I've done it.  You might also want to talk to someone in
>> the data recovery business.  IIRC, there was a presentation by one such
>> person at a TLUG meeting a few years back.
> 
> I have spoken to people in the data forensics field, yes.  With
> multi-platter disk drives, I encourage anyone to prove me (and the
> forensics guys) wrong.  The problem is that newer disks are aligned
> and sealed at the same time in the factory.  The tracking information
> is written to the disk while it is enclosed.  I don't see how you
> would determine how to align the tracks from data which you cannot
> determine is valid data or not.  Please explain and show proof.  Btw,
> I have done and consulted with forensics experts about the situation
> you speak of -- using a similar drive to recover data.  I encourage
> anyone to provide evidence that it is possible.  There is no evidence,
> that I have seen, to support it.  However, there is a multitude of
> evidence to show that once you misalign the platters, your data is
> toast...

For the present. That's the whole point of the argument for destroying 
the physical magnetic substrate. 30 years from now technology today will 
look just like that old 8086 from the late 70's, and I'm sure a 10TB 
RAID array then was less than just a faint glimmer in the imagination of 
the most visionary person involved with technology at that time.

If nothing else, taking a hammer to the platters in a hard drive can be 
fun, so why not destroy your data that way?

Jamon
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