[GRLUG] Disk scrubber

[Tim Schmidt]

On 7/25/06, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
>  You'd think that if security of all kinds
>  was the issue,  and the hard drive
>  industry really could provide an effective
>  erase mechanism,  that overall security
>  would be improved by implementing it.
>  That was people could, in principle,
>  erase their drives thoroughly before
>  they get rid of them.  How many would
>  actually bother is always a question.
>
>  But as we read repeatedly,  the bigger
>   problem seems to be simple theft.  Gov't
>  laptops ( tax payer laptops really ) seem
>  to disappear daily,  and somehow they
>  always seem to have a few million Social
>  Security or credit card numbers on them,
>   or all the military's codes and plans.
>  One can provide certain kinds of security,
>  but it might just be that the big ticket
>  items are from people just walking away
>  with the hard drive or the machine it's in.
>
>      -Bob

Heh.  A friend of mine interned with Barnes Aerospace...  withholding
names and places here for obvious reasons.  He said that a fairly
large cardboard box containing all of Barnes' plans for B2 bomber
parts went missing for about a week.  Complete with the lead engineer
wandering the halls asking everyone if they'd seen it.

Security, digital or otherwise, is really hard.  You can achieve 100%
security, but only at the cost of 0% usability.  The right balance is
the key.

--tim