Hard Disk Failure

[Ben Scott]

On 2/26/06, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
>>   Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a
>> mirror finish.  Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings
>
> Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust"

  Well, if you knew what the right term was, why didn't you use it?  :-)

> C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred
> their drives?  Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying
> recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-)

  I gather you're being facetious, but: You seem to be operating under
the assumption that there is a "they".  The "they" is "us".  As it
happens, I've had a couple of jobs where the sanitization of
classified data storage was a concern of mine.  The government
security people are just that -- people, just like you and me.  "They"
have a job, and manuals, and things they like, and things they
disagree with, and all that.  You don't get a decoder ring or a secret
handshake when you work with the NSA, just a lot more paperwork.  :-/ 
But when it came to sanitization (rendering information unrecoverable
by any known means), "they" were quite clear about what was required.

  I suppose it's possible there's some super-secret level of
classification that's so secret "they" don't even tell "us" about it,
but hey, maybe I know about that too and just aren't telling "you"
about it.  ;-)

-- Ben