"Hey Andrew, those harddrives that are left over there, can you arrange 
for somebody to come and take them away? I mean, we can't just leave 
them there. Even if they're been erased, you can still get the data off 
them if you want to."

Uh... like, WTF?

I mean, sure, if you take the drive apart and crawl over it with a 
microscope, you can recover data. But who the **** is going to bother? 
It's not like you could recover any particularly valuable data.

(Personally, I think my boss honestly believes that you can take an 
erased harddrive and just plug it in and type "undelete" and all the 
data will come back. It doesn't work like that...)

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

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863b9a3@news.povray.org...

> I mean, sure, if you take the drive apart and crawl over it with a
> microscope, you can recover data. But who the **** is going to bother?
> It's not like you could recover any particularly valuable data.

Um, actually...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,108831-page,1/article.html
http://www.guard-privacy-and-online-security.com/how-clean-off-the-hard-driv
e.html

Your boss is right. It may not be as easy as 'undelete' but the data's there
and it doesn't take a microscope to find it, and it could be worth a lot of
money.

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

> Um, actually...
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,108831-page,1/article.html

A study found that some people selling drives hadn't even bothered to 
erase them at all. Pressing the "delete" button doesn't erase the file.

This isn't news.

> http://www.guard-privacy-and-online-security.com/how-clean-off-the-hard-driv
> e.html

This doesn't look terribly convincing to me.

> Your boss is right. It may not be as easy as 'undelete' but the data's there
> and it doesn't take a microscope to find it, and it could be worth a lot of
> money.

Right. Well I'll tell you what, you show me an actual technique that 
allows you to recover data from a harddrive after every individual block 
has been written with zeros, without the use of a microscope. ;-)

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

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> (Personally, I think my boss honestly believes that you can take an 
> erased harddrive and just plug it in and type "undelete" and all the 
> data will come back. It doesn't work like that...)

Depends how erased it is, of course. Your boss might not know that you 
know how to erase a drive correctly. :)

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

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
> Your boss is right. It may not be as easy as 'undelete' but the data's there
> and it doesn't take a microscope to find it, and it could be worth a lot of
> money.

It depends how you erased the drive. If you just formatted it, no, the 
data's all still there. If you actually overwrote it, it takes special 
electronics to retrieve it if you can at all.

If you're the DoD, and large numbers of people die when a foreign 
government spends several millions of dollars to recover the data from 
the disk, yes, 21 passes is probably good. That, or scrubbing the drive 
with a belt sander or wire brush and then soaking it in acid until it 
dissolves.

If shredding is good enough for your paper records (vs shred, 
incinerate, stir, then dissolve in acid) then the IFIPS standard is 
probably good enough for your hard drives.

If you're using Windows, simply running
   cipher /w:p:
will overwrite all the spaces on drive p: that don't hold files, first 
with zeros, then with ones, then with random patterns. You can do this 
while the machine is in use. Of course, if you format P: and then do it, 
it'll wipe pretty much everything except (potentially) old file names.

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

Post a reply to this message

"Gail Shaw" <initialsurname@sentech sa dot com> wrote:

> Um, actually...
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,108831-page,1/article.html
> http://www.guard-privacy-and-online-security.com/how-clean-off-the-hard-driv
> e.html
>
> Your boss is right. It may not be as easy as 'undelete' but the data's there
> and it doesn't take a microscope to find it, and it could be worth a lot of
> money.


This has always bothered me.  Something does not hang right.

Could one just copy a couple of version of a linux distro (0.6 to 4 GB) on top
of it?  Would THAT be enough to completely obfuscate what was originally on the
disk?   If not, then why hasn't anyone yet made a commercial use of the ability
of HDD's to remember everything that has ever been on them?

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863bd87@news.povray.org...

> Right. Well I'll tell you what, you show me an actual technique that
> allows you to recover data from a harddrive after every individual block
> has been written with zeros, without the use of a microscope. ;-)

Show me where in your original message you said anything about having done a
proper purge of the drive.

Post a reply to this message

"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.4863c87ab122afc76cf3d0b10@news.povray.org...

> Could one just copy a couple of version of a linux distro (0.6 to 4 GB) on
top
> of it?  Would THAT be enough to completely obfuscate what was originally
on the
> disk?   If not, then why hasn't anyone yet made a commercial use of the
ability
> of HDD's to remember everything that has ever been on them?
>

Copying files over won't guarenteed overwrite ever single sector of the
drive

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:4863bd87@news.povray.org...
> 
>> Right. Well I'll tell you what, you show me an actual technique that
>> allows you to recover data from a harddrive after every individual block
>> has been written with zeros, without the use of a microscope. ;-)
> 
> Show me where in your original message you said anything about having done a
> proper purge of the drive.

I gave him more credit than to complain about it without having actually 
erased the drive. :-)

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

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

> Show me where in your original message you said anything about having done a
> proper purge of the drive.

"Even if they've been erased, you can still get data off them."

Now, if I'd just done something like

   delete C:\*.*

then my boss would have a point. With the right tools, it wouldn't be 
too hard to get the files back.

What I actually did was

   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

[Note that that's "sda", not "sda1", meaning the partition table and MBR 
are gone too.]

Using random data would be slightly more secure, but we have already 
reached the point where drive disassembly [and extremely expensive 
specialist equipment] is required. Given the sensitivity of the data 
involved... further effort seems overkill.

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

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Depends how erased it is, of course. Your boss might not know that you 
> know how to erase a drive correctly. :)

My boss might not know that there's more than one way to "erase" a drive.

OOC... how much does it cost to recover data from a drive that has had 
zeros written to every single byte on the drive? Any estimates?

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

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4863d6fc$1@news.povray.org...

>
> I gave him more credit than to complain about it without having actually
> erased the drive. :-)

Maybe I'm too used to idiots. If someone says they've erased a file, I
assume that was just a delete until informed otherwise

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863d8d1$1@news.povray.org...
> Darren New wrote:
>
> > Depends how erased it is, of course. Your boss might not know that you
> > know how to erase a drive correctly. :)
>
> My boss might not know that there's more than one way to "erase" a drive.
>
> OOC... how much does it cost to recover data from a drive that has had
> zeros written to every single byte on the drive? Any estimates?

LOTS. Even recovering from logical failure is Expensive.
I investigated drive recovery after a damaged partition table and a defrag
shuffles sectors of one partition over a second parition. Even to recover 2
directories was far more than I could afford

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> It depends how you erased the drive. If you just formatted it, no, the 
> data's all still there. If you actually overwrote it, it takes special 
> electronics to retrieve it if you can at all.

I'm told if you take the drive apart, you can take advantage of slight 
tracking errors in the read/write heads that allows traces of old 
signals to remain present at the margins of each track. However, this is 
NOT a cheap operations AFAIK. (!!) It requires clean-room conditions, 
sophisticated magnetic scanning microscopes, detailed knowledge of HD 
construction, etc.

> If you're the DoD, and large numbers of people die when a foreign 
> government spends several millions of dollars to recover the data from 
> the disk, yes, 21 passes is probably good. That, or scrubbing the drive 
> with a belt sander or wire brush and then soaking it in acid until it 
> dissolves.

...or just incinerate the platters? (Heat tends to disrupt magnetic 
domains rather efficiently - as does the platters being reduced to 
molten glass and deformed beyond recognition!)

Anyway, hypothetically supposing somebody magically recovered every 
single file from these drives, they would get... the names of the drugs 
we were working on 5 years ago, and possibly some analytical results 
data. Which won't mean a damned thing, because they won't know what 
"sample 39" actually *is*.

It's more the fact that the drives had licenced software on them that 
other people shouldn't have...

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

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

> Maybe I'm too used to idiots. If someone says they've erased a file, I
> assume that was just a delete until informed otherwise

Mmm... better to be pleasently surprised than horribly dissapointed? ;-)

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

Post a reply to this message

>> OOC... how much does it cost to recover data from a drive that has had
>> zeros written to every single byte on the drive? Any estimates?
> 
> LOTS.

I thought so.

Presumably it's something you only bother doing if the data is worth 
more than the cost of recovery...?

> Even recovering from logical failure is Expensive.
> I investigated drive recovery after a damaged partition table and a defrag
> shuffles sectors of one partition over a second parition. Even to recover 2
> directories was far more than I could afford

Ouch.

I always thought this kind of service was only of use to intelligence 
agencies and people with poor backup procedures. ;-)

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

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm told if you take the drive apart, you can take advantage of slight 
> tracking errors in the read/write heads that allows traces of old 
> signals to remain present at the margins of each track.

Yes. That's why the DoD doesn't actually erase disks that contain 
*really* sensitive information. Unless you consider a grinding stone 
"erasing".

> ....or just incinerate the platters? (Heat tends to disrupt magnetic 
> domains rather efficiently - as does the platters being reduced to 
> molten glass and deformed beyond recognition!)

No, I believe the actual rule is "grind off the surface, then dissolve 
the platters."

> It's more the fact that the drives had licenced software on them that 
> other people shouldn't have...

Right. Simple overwriting is enough. Like all security, the point is to 
make it more expensive to recover the data than the data is worth.

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

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863dac5$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
> > Maybe I'm too used to idiots. If someone says they've erased a file, I
> > assume that was just a delete until informed otherwise
>
> Mmm... better to be pleasently surprised than horribly dissapointed? ;-)

Yup.

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863db04$1@news.povray.org...
>
> I always thought this kind of service was only of use to intelligence
> agencies and people with poor backup procedures. ;-)

Well, seeing as I lost data in the process, I guess that you'd put me in
category 2?
In limited defence, I had a fairly complete backup (DVD) a few months old
and a partial backup a week or so old (flash drive). I only lost a few
things. Most were recreatable.

Post a reply to this message

> news:4863db04$1@news.povray.org...
>> I always thought this kind of service was only of use to intelligence
>> agencies and people with poor backup procedures. ;-)
> 
> Well, seeing as I lost data in the process, I guess that you'd put me in
> category 2?
> In limited defence, I had a fairly complete backup (DVD) a few months old
> and a partial backup a week or so old (flash drive). I only lost a few
> things. Most were recreatable.

Fact: When I was at uni, every single time assignment hand-in date came 
around, you would not *believe* how many 3.5" disks went faulty! ;-)



What amused me was the scene that unfolded the other day...

Jane: Hey Andrew, you know that safe you used to use to hold the backup 
tapes? You don't need that any more, do you?

Me: ...er, YES.

Jane: Oh. Really??

Me: Um, yes.

Jane: ...Oh. What, even in the new building?

Me: Er, yes.

Jane: Oh. Don't you use DVDs or something now?

Me: ...?

Jane: So I can't have that safe then?

Me: Er, no.

Jane: Oh, OK. Well anyway, it's been moved to the lab now.

Me: ...right, OK. That's a procedure violation then.

Jane: OK. Bye...

Fact: Capacity of a DVD = 4 GB. Capacity of a single DDS-4 tape = 20 GB 
= 5 DVDs. Capacity of a single LTO1 tape = 100 GB = 25 DVDs. Transfer 
speed of a DVD = 1.35 MB/sec. LTO1 = 15 MB/sec. Why in the name of God 
would we use DVDs?!

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

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4863f9fb@news.povray.org...
> > news:4863db04$1@news.povray.org...
> >> I always thought this kind of service was only of use to intelligence
> >> agencies and people with poor backup procedures. ;-)
> >
> > Well, seeing as I lost data in the process, I guess that you'd put me in
> > category 2?
> > In limited defence, I had a fairly complete backup (DVD) a few months
old
> > and a partial backup a week or so old (flash drive). I only lost a few
> > things. Most were recreatable.
>
> Fact: When I was at uni, every single time assignment hand-in date came
> around, you would not *believe* how many 3.5" disks went faulty! ;-)

We had a simple solution to that problem. Faulty disk = 0%. Suddenly the
disks got more reliable. Must have been a faulty batch.

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

>> Fact: When I was at uni, every single time assignment hand-in date came
>> around, you would not *believe* how many 3.5" disks went faulty! ;-)
> 
> We had a simple solution to that problem. Faulty disk = 0%. Suddenly the
> disks got more reliable. Must have been a faulty batch.

Even more interesting: At hand-in time, there was *always* at least one 
laser printer that was faulty.

[This was almost always traced back to some DILBERT putting the wrong 
kind of transparency into it. Do NOT do this!!]

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

Post a reply to this message

gregjohn wrote:
> "Gail Shaw" <initialsurname@sentech sa dot com> wrote:
> 
>> Um, actually...
>> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,108831-page,1/article.html
>> http://www.guard-privacy-and-online-security.com/how-clean-off-the-hard-driv
>> e.html
>>
>> Your boss is right. It may not be as easy as 'undelete' but the data's there
>> and it doesn't take a microscope to find it, and it could be worth a lot of
>> money.
> 
> 
> This has always bothered me.  Something does not hang right.
> 
> Could one just copy a couple of version of a linux distro (0.6 to 4 GB) on top
> of it?  Would THAT be enough to completely obfuscate what was originally on the
> disk?   If not, then why hasn't anyone yet made a commercial use of the ability
> of HDD's to remember everything that has ever been on them?
> 
> 
> 
> 

Because to go back through the information that used to be on the drive 
takes advantage of the flaws in the drive it self. The read/write head 
goes over the drive and writes a pattern, let's say 1111 overtop of what 
used to be 0101. While the drive it sending out digital data, the 
magnetic pattern on the disk doesn't exist in just a 0 or 1 state.

Think of it as just a bar refrigerator magnet, facing up/down | is one, 
sideways - is 0. but the bar could be oriented like / or \. Given that 
those don't appear to be past 45 degrees off vertical, I'd guess they 
would both read like 1 instead of 0. Now, you have a visual of a 
collection of bar magnets that aren't lined up perfectly. To write them 
all to 1s, you would just rotate each one to a more vertical position. 
Knowing the strength of the write head's magnet, you could guess how 
much that change would be. So, you read the drive head in a less digital 
and more analogue manner, and then remove the affect of the last write 
phase. The more accurate the initial reading and the knowledge of the 
write magnet's properties, the better you can guess past that first phase.

The drive it self just doesn't work that way. After a point, it's a 
statistical guess as to how accurate the data you get back is. But some 
people are willing to spend a lot of money on just a guess for certain data.

Post a reply to this message

> Even more interesting: At hand-in time, there was *always* at least one 
> laser printer that was faulty.

Imagine the date approaching for 300 of us to hand in our 4th year project 
reports.  Most reports were around 100 pages, and we needed to hand in two 
copies.  At the Engineering department we had 2 or 3 laser printers that 
were *free* to use (as opposed to college computer rooms where you had to 
pay).  You can imagine the total carnage that happened the days before, I'm 
sure they got in an extra pallet of A4 paper for that week.

Post a reply to this message

I can think of several ways you could "erase" the data on a hard drive:

1. Delete all the files. (E.g., delete C:\*.*)

2. Format every partition with, say, NTFS.

3. Delete all partitions.

4. Low-level format the drive (using, e.g., Maxtor PowerMax).

5. Write zeros to every byte. (E.g., dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda)

6. Write random data to every byte. (...of=/dev/urandom)

7. Physically disassemble the drive, seperate the platters, magnetise 
them, scratch them, smash them to pieces, and melt the pieces in a vat 
of heated acid.

As I understand it, option #1 is fairly easy to reverse. (Especially if 
you just delete all the files and then throw away the disk. All file 
data is guaranteed to still be there, you just have to find it somehow.)

Option #2 destroys some of the filesystem metadata, but AFAIK the blocks 
holding file data will still be intact. (Formatting with, say, ext2 
takes a tiny fraction of the time that FAT or NTFS formatting takes, so 
I'm assuming that NTFS overwrites more data. But I don't *think* it 
overwrites everything.)

Option #3 should be pretty simple to reverse, AFAIK.

I am unsure as to whether #4 and #5 are different in any way. Both seem 
to take the same amount of time...

As far as I know, both option #5 and option #6 make it impossible to 
read any useful data from the drive just by plugging it in and asking 
the drive electronics to read the data off the disk surface. In either 
case, you would have to physically dismantle the drive and crawl over it 
with a microscope - which is damned expensive. Using random data (and 
multiple passes of it) reputedly makes this process harder - but not 
impossible. Non-sequential writes are supposed to make it harder still.

As far as I can tell, option #7 gives 100% guaranteed data destruction. 
But I don't have any star-drive screwdrivers. :-P [Or heated acid - 
unless you count my stomach. And I am *not* putting shards of shattered 
glass in there!]

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

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:17:47 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>I can think of several ways you could "erase" the data on a hard drive:

PGP shredder it is free
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> 1. Delete all the files. (E.g., delete C:\*.*)

I wonder if you actually asked many non-geeks, what they would say if you 
asked them how they would go about erasing all their data from their 
computer?  I guess if you try to select-all and delete the contents of drive 
C from within windows it's going to get stuck at some point.

> Option #2 destroys some of the filesystem metadata, but AFAIK the blocks 
> holding file data will still be intact.

Oh, I thought that "format" really went over every byte of the partition and 
wrote to it?  IIRC there is a "quick format" option, which I assumed just 
did the headers and stuff to make it look like it was formatted.

> I am unsure as to whether #4 and #5 are different in any way. Both seem to 
> take the same amount of time...

I think that writing zeros to the disk would make it easier to recover the 
data, but that's just a guess.

> As far as I can tell, option #7 gives 100% guaranteed data destruction. 
> But I don't have any star-drive screwdrivers. :-P [Or heated acid - unless 
> you count my stomach. And I am *not* putting shards of shattered glass in 
> there!]

Just chuck it on a hot fire.  Saw it in half first if you want things to go 
quicker.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> 1. Delete all the files. (E.g., delete C:\*.*)
> 
> I wonder if you actually asked many non-geeks, what they would say if 
> you asked them how they would go about erasing all their data from their 
> computer?  I guess if you try to select-all and delete the contents of 
> drive C from within windows it's going to get stuck at some point.

If you just want to delete "your" files, you can certainly do this. If 
you want to delete the OS, you'll definitely have to do it while running 
under something else. (Obviously.) I have an external USB enclosure for 
this exact purpose. It's shiny. The company paid for it. :-D

>> Option #2 destroys some of the filesystem metadata, but AFAIK the 
>> blocks holding file data will still be intact.
> 
> Oh, I thought that "format" really went over every byte of the partition 
> and wrote to it?  IIRC there is a "quick format" option, which I assumed 
> just did the headers and stuff to make it look like it was formatted.

Formatting a drive with ext2 just rewrites the inode tables. (Or... 
something like that.) Doesn't touch most of the disk surface, and 
typically takes about 20 seconds for a large partition.

A "normal" format with FAT or NTFS seems to touch more of the disk 
surface, but I'm not 100% sure whether it rewrites every single block, 
or just the first block in each cluster. The "quick format" option just 
rewrites the file allocation table, AFAIK. (That's why it takes seconds.)

>> I am unsure as to whether #4 and #5 are different in any way. Both 
>> seem to take the same amount of time...
> 
> I think that writing zeros to the disk would make it easier to recover 
> the data, but that's just a guess.

Writing random data is theoretically best. But in either case, once data 
has been overwritten, the drive electronics can't read it back. You're 
into microscope territory. The question is whether a low-level format 
actually overwrites everything or not.

> Just chuck it on a hot fire.  Saw it in half first if you want things to 
> go quicker.

Have you ever *tried* to make a hot fire?

It's way harder than it sounds...

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

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:

> PGP shredder it is free

1. Is it still free? IIRC they changed the licence a while back.

2. Can it erase an entire drive? I know it could do individual files, 
one at a time, and I think there was a free space wipe too. But a whole 
drive?

Better yet, didn't PGP used to offer a whole-drive encryption option? If 
you keep your entire drive encrypted, all you need to do is delete the 
encryption key. ;-)

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

Post a reply to this message

> Have you ever *tried* to make a hot fire?

Hot enough to melt aluminium or glass - no problem.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:04:26 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>Stephen wrote:
>
>> PGP shredder it is free
>
>1. Is it still free? IIRC they changed the licence a while back.

Shredding is free so is encrypting files and IM

>2. Can it erase an entire drive? I know it could do individual files, 
>one at a time, and I think there was a free space wipe too. But a whole 
>drive?

Yes it can but not with the free version, I think. I'm not going to
try it on my own HD :)

>Better yet, didn't PGP used to offer a whole-drive encryption option? If 
>you keep your entire drive encrypted, all you need to do is delete the 
>encryption key. ;-)

True
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>>> PGP shredder it is free
>> 1. Is it still free? IIRC they changed the licence a while back.
> 
> Shredding is free so is encrypting files and IM

It does IM now?

Heh, I used to like PGP. Before it became all commercial and 
closed-source and expensive and stuff...

I've experimented with GPG, but that only encrypts files. It doesn't 
offer any other functionality. Oh well! I don't have any sensitive data 
anyway, what do I need cryptography for?

>> 2. Can it erase an entire drive? I know it could do individual files, 
>> one at a time, and I think there was a free space wipe too. But a whole 
>> drive?
> 
> Yes it can but not with the free version, I think. I'm not going to
> try it on my own HD :)

You could see if the button's there or not. :-P

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

Post a reply to this message

>> 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

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

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4864acb4$1@news.povray.org...
> Have you ever *tried* to make a hot fire?
>
> It's way harder than it sounds...
>
good quality coke (not the drink), good air-flow, in one word  : a forge 
fire

Marc

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>> Hot enough to melt aluminium or glass - no problem.
>
> Heh. I had enough trouble trying to burn through a tree stump!

Most people in my street make fires daily in the winter that are hot enough 
to burn tree stumps.  You just need to start off with some paper, then thin 
bits of dry wood, then bigger bits of wood, until it gets hot enough to put 
on whole pieces of tree.

> Now if I had *thermite*... >:-D

And how do you plan to ignite the thermite?

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>>> Hot enough to melt aluminium or glass - no problem.
>>
>> Heh. I had enough trouble trying to burn through a tree stump!
> 
> Most people in my street make fires daily in the winter that are hot 
> enough to burn tree stumps.  You just need to start off with some paper, 
> then thin bits of dry wood, then bigger bits of wood, until it gets hot 
> enough to put on whole pieces of tree.

I wouldn't mind, but this way in the middle of a hot summer drought. The 
wood was dry as hell, the sun is beating down on us, and yet the fire 
keeps going out...

We never did get it to turn in the end. Burned a whole heap of paper and 
cardboard, but the tree never got more than mildly scorched.

>> Now if I had *thermite*... >:-D
> 
> And how do you plan to ignite the thermite?

By remote control from a distance of more than 3 km?

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

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On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:52:03 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>
>It does IM now?

It says it does AIM, AOL IM

>Heh, I used to like PGP. Before it became all commercial and 
>closed-source and expensive and stuff...

Me too but Dr John said that he would not drink with someone who did
not have it on their HD :)

>I've experimented with GPG, but that only encrypts files. It doesn't 
>offer any other functionality. Oh well! I don't have any sensitive data 
>anyway, what do I need cryptography for?

As Dr John ;)

>>> 2. Can it erase an entire drive? I know it could do individual files, 
>>> one at a time, and I think there was a free space wipe too. But a whole 
>>> drive?
>> 
>> Yes it can but not with the free version, I think. I'm not going to
>> try it on my own HD :)
>
>You could see if the button's there or not. :-P

OK there is a button but you need a licence :(
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Stephen wrote:
>> Heh, I used to like PGP. Before it became all commercial and 
>> closed-source and expensive and stuff...
> 
> Me too but Dr John said that he would not drink with someone who did
> not have it on their HD :)
> 

Not true! I said i wouldn't _buy_ a drink for someone etc.

>> I've experimented with GPG, but that only encrypts files. It doesn't 
>> offer any other functionality. Oh well! I don't have any sensitive data 
>> anyway, what do I need cryptography for?
> 
> As Dr John ;)

GPG shreds files on all my machines. It can also encrypt a whole
filesystem. What else do you need?

> 
>>>> 2. Can it erase an entire drive? I know it could do individual files, 
>>>> one at a time, and I think there was a free space wipe too. But a whole 
>>>> drive?
>>> Yes it can but not with the free version, I think. I'm not going to
>>> try it on my own HD :)
>> You could see if the button's there or not. :-P
> 
> OK there is a button but you need a licence :(

So install Linux :-) and use GPG

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:42:20 +0100, Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom>
wrote:

>
>Not true! I said i wouldn't _buy_ a drink for someone etc.

That's true 
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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That you give me no Soooooul,
I hear you call-innng.
Oh baby pleeeease,
give a little respeeect,
toooooououo meeeeee.

-- 
Phil Cook

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

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> We never did get it to turn in the end. Burned a whole heap of paper and 
> cardboard, but the tree never got more than mildly scorched.

Looks like you needed some smaller bits of wood first, don't expect to light 
a tree with cardboard and paper.

>>> Now if I had *thermite*... >:-D
>>
>> And how do you plan to ignite the thermite?
>
> By remote control from a distance of more than 3 km?

If you had that sort of kit, you'd probably find easier ways to destroy a 
mere hard drive.

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Phil Cook wrote:
> That you give me no Soooooul,
> I hear you call-innng.
> Oh baby pleeeease,
> give a little respeeect,
> toooooououo meeeeee.

...who let HIM out?!? o_O

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

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*facepalms*

Damn it Phil, it's too early on a Friday!! >_<

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

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And lo on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:03:36 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> That you give me no Soooooul,
>> I hear you call-innng.
>> Oh baby pleeeease,
>> give a little respeeect,
>> toooooououo meeeeee.
>
> ...who let HIM out?!? o_O

You wound me little one, you wound me to the quick :-P

The annoying thing is that this reminded me that I was going to look up a  
song I heard last night and both this and hearing Living on the Ceiling by  
Blancmange just on the radio has wiped it; damn now I'm stuck with the  
image of people treadmill dancing.

-- 
Phil Cook

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

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m_a_r_c wrote:
> good quality coke

Snort! :-D

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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scott wrote:
> 
> Most people in my street make fires daily in the winter that are hot 
> enough to burn tree stumps.  You just need to start off with some paper, 

No you don't, the cover of right wood (what's koivu in English?) is 
usually a lot easier to use than paper (it starts to burn as easily, but 
it burns with higher temperature). Or...

> then thin bits of dry wood, then bigger bits of wood, until it gets hot 
> enough to put on whole pieces of tree.

...if you have thin enough bits of really dry wood, just use them. 
They'll ignite pretty nicely and have warm enough flame to ignite 
another bits of dry wood.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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get one of these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o

This is sad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQs5hchKCAM

:(

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>> Most people in my street make fires daily in the winter that are hot 
>> enough to burn tree stumps.  You just need to start off with some paper,
>
> No you don't, the cover of right wood (what's koivu in English?) is 
> usually a lot easier to use than paper (it starts to burn as easily, but 
> it burns with higher temperature). Or...
>
>> then thin bits of dry wood, then bigger bits of wood, until it gets hot 
>> enough to put on whole pieces of tree.
>
> ...if you have thin enough bits of really dry wood, just use them.

Maybe you misunderstood, I start with paper just because it's easy to ignite 
with a match (plus it saves filling up the paper bin!).  I make a nice 
stack, starting with paper and cardboard at the bottom, then gradually 
bigger and bigger bits of wood on the stack.  Then all I need to do is 
ignite the paper at the bottom with a match for 2 seconds, and 5 minutes 
later the whole lot is always burning very well.

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scott wrote:
> 
> Maybe you misunderstood, I start with paper just because it's easy to 
> ignite with a match (plus it saves filling up the paper bin!).  I make a 
> nice stack, starting with paper and cardboard at the bottom, then 
> gradually bigger and bigger bits of wood on the stack.  Then all I need 
> to do is ignite the paper at the bottom with a match for 2 seconds, and 
> 5 minutes later the whole lot is always burning very well.

Ah yes, I missed the one-pile -idea, but basically all the other 
arguments stay the same - certain trees have a cover that's better 
igniter than paper and really dry and thin bits of wood have no problem 
there either.

The point of filling paper bin is naturally true ;).

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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Kyle wrote:
> get one of these:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o

I could identify at least 2 (IBM?) server discs (SCA sleds), 1 Deathstar 
and 1 Fireball. I also think I saw a second fireball going in, but due 
to crappy image I can't be sure.

Note to self: never try to put your hand in there.

> This is sad:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQs5hchKCAM
> 
> :(
> 

Yes :(.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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