POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Oh what joy! Server Time
7 Sep 2024 15:23:21 EDT (-0400)
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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 28 Jun 2008 13:17:34
Message: <4866722e$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
>>> Have you ever *tried* to make a hot fire?
>>
>> Hot enough to melt aluminium or glass - no problem.
> 
> Heh. I had enough trouble trying to burn through a tree stump!
> 
> Now if I had *thermite*... >:-D
> 

You don't need thermite, just gasoline.  Soak the stump with it for a 
few hours (or even a day or two) first :) :) :)

...Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 28 Jun 2008 13:22:14
Message: <48667346$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:
> Unless the drive had a command 
> built in that wiped the entire track in one rotation or something, 
> rather than actually having to transfer the data from memory to the 
> drive for the whole thing.
> 

Actually, that would be a pretty cool feature for a hard drive: an 
external button that, when pressed, caused the drive to overwrite itself 
with random data.

(Or maybe instead of a button, a keyhole, so it would be harder to do 
accidentally).

...Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: Oh what joy!
Date: 28 Jun 2008 13:28:21
Message: <486674b5@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> First rule in data security:  Never assume any data is unrecoverable.
>>
>> Second rule in data security:  Never assume nobody is watching.
> 
> Third rule in data security: There's no point in overkill. :-P
> 

I don't think you'd enjoy working in a bank.  They actively encourage 
paranoia.

...Chambers


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 28 Jun 2008 13:35:36
Message: <48667668$1@news.povray.org>
>> Now if I had *thermite*... >:-D
>>
> 
> You don't need thermite, just gasoline.  Soak the stump with it for a 
> few hours (or even a day or two) first :) :) :)

I was talking about melting a harddrive. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: Oh what joy!
Date: 28 Jun 2008 13:37:03
Message: <486676bf$1@news.povray.org>
>> Third rule in data security: There's no point in overkill. :-P
>>
> 
> I don't think you'd enjoy working in a bank.  They actively encourage 
> paranoia.

Well, a bank has data that is *worth* spending a fortune attacking. 
Having serious security for a system that actually warrants it is not 
overkill, by definition. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 28 Jun 2008 15:07:56
Message: <48668c0c$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Oh, are you doing a quick format, or a full format? A "full format" 
>> actually does read the entire drive. Ext apparently won't do a "full 
>> format". You have to do a quick format, then scan the disk for errors.
> 
> Full format.
> 
> Does it just scan the disk, or does it actually write data to it?

For a hard drive, it's read-only on any area not touched by a quick 
format.  So, yes, what you said.

> An NTFS quick format takes about 15-20 seconds, same as ext2.

Huh. Mine's about 5 times as fast. Of course, how often do you format a 
partition? Five seconds or 30 seconds, in the grand scheme, isn't 
significant. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 28 Jun 2008 15:09:29
Message: <48668c69$1@news.povray.org>
Chambers wrote:
> Actually, that would be a pretty cool feature for a hard drive: an 
> external button that, when pressed, caused the drive to overwrite itself 
> with random data.

I've seen drive enclosures with a USB key that has an encryption key on 
it, so everything on the whole drive is automatically encrypted with the 
key.  I was thinking of getting one until someone actually analyzed it 
and figured out it was doing the equivalent of ROT-13 with the drive.

Advertised as using AES for encryption, it just used AES for generating 
the key, said key then being xored identically with every sector read or 
written on the disk. Feh.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: Oh what joy!
Date: 28 Jun 2008 16:06:18
Message: <486699ba$1@news.povray.org>
On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:28:51 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Right. But if I've erased every individual block on the drive (rather
> than just, say, reinstalling Windows on it) then it won't find anything.

I must've been more tired than I thought I was (haven't been sleeping 
well) - somehow I *completely* missed this.  Of course if that was easily 
possible, I wouldn't be contemplating how to replace data on a drive 
that's developed some bad sectors.  Out-of-band recovery is the only way 
I'd be able to do that, and that is damned expensive, yes.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: Oh what joy!
Date: 28 Jun 2008 16:06:47
Message: <486699d7$1@news.povray.org>
On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:24:08 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> First rule in data security:  Never assume any data is unrecoverable.
>> 
>> Second rule in data security:  Never assume nobody is watching.
> 
> Third rule in data security: There's no point in overkill. :-P

That only works if you know what constitutes overkill. :-)

Jim


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From: Phil Cook
Subject: Re: Erasure
Date: 30 Jun 2008 04:42:30
Message: <op.udjzvjpkc3xi7v@news.povray.org>
And lo on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:48:13 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake, saying:

> Invisible wrote:
>> Damn it Phil, it's too early on a Friday!! >_<
>
> Philip,

> do you realise that you were directly responsible for me spending my  
> entire afternoon looking up the Wikipedia entries for Erasure, Depeche  
> Mode, Shamen, Orbital, The Chemical Brothers, Beth Orton, William Orbit,  
> house, acid house, trance, rave, and two dozen other articles?!

I'm just a little ray of sunshine bringing hours of time-wasting fun to  
the world. At the moment I have the Ting Tings, Chris Isaak, and TATU  
competing in my head; but can you guess the songs? :-P

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com


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