Purge!

[Norwegiantweaker]

Greetings,

Anyone wanna help me write an "program" to purge the whole system?.

 

rendering the drives unrecoerable. ?

Because reasons ?

[helping]

you mean like high pass DBAN?

[CornOnJacob]

How about using:

• Boot + Nuke? (as @helping suggested)
• Sledgehammer?
• Magnet (for mechanical drives only)
• Blowtorch?
• Water?
• All of the above?

You're welcome.

[AMICLG]

Therea's already a program for this, just boot into a linux live disc and open Gparted then zero the HDDs.

[Jerakl]

How about using:

• Boot + Nuke? (as @helping suggested)
• Sledgehammer?
• Magnet (for mechanical drives only)
• Blowtorch?
• Water?
• All of the above?

You're welcome.

Throwing it in a black hole?

[Norwegiantweaker]

you mean like high pass DBAN?

 

along the lines but more extensive and immediate, like *knock knock, sup feds here" PURGE! haha

How about using:

• Boot + Nuke?
• Sledgehammer?
• Magnet (for mechanical drives only)
• Blowtorch?
• Water?
• All of the above?

You're welcome.

iguess you missed the part about writing one

[Norwegiantweaker]

Therea's already a program for this, just boot into a linux live disc and open Gparted then zero the HDDs.

yeah. witch takes time and is not someting we as a community can write. iknow there are dozens of programs like this, but not one made by the LTT com

[TheNinjaNextDor]

So you are under watch and when Federal agents come into your house you want to erase everything because reasons?

[helping]

along the lines but more extensive and immediate, like *knock knock, sup feds here" PURGE! haha

iguess you missed the part about writing one

I don't think there is a way to do that short of thermite 

 

the fact that you even did that is borderline incriminating in some places as well. 

[CornOnJacob]

i guess you missed the part about writing one

I fail to see why you would want or need to write such a program. There are many great ways to physically destroy the data, and GParted and/or Boot & Nuke can do the same thing while keeping the drive intact (although the data could theoretically be partially recovered).

[techswede]

I'd be interested in something like this. Something i could use before i sell a pc that is a one time thing that wipes every single thing off the entire system.

So that whoever buys the computer can start using it as if it was completely new. 

[Norwegiantweaker]

I don't think there is a way to do that short of thermite 

 

the fact that you even did that is borderline incriminating in some places as well. 

eehnope. its my data i can do whatever i want with it. and lets say that you live in an area with alot of theft and crime, you could easily delete a whole nas and or computer with just running one program and it would mean that bank statements and sensitive private information would not get stolen and abused, the part with feds was just a joke but thats how fast it needs to be.

 

I fail to see why you would want or need to write such a program. There are many great ways to physically destroy the data, and GParted and/or Boot & Nuke can do the same thing while keeping the drive intact (although the data could theoretically be partially recovered).

sure i can just hook up a block of C4 to it... then it would be ruined. the point is a emergency solution to get rid of all sensitive data.

 

I'd be interested in something like this. Something i could use before i sell a pc that is a one time thing that wipes every single thing off the entire system.

So that whoever buys the computer can start using it as if it was completely new. 

it could be used for this aswell ofc.

what im immagining is someting that is rapid and easy to use and guaranteed to work

[alpenwasser]

it could be used for this aswell ofc.

what im immagining is someting that is rapid and easy to use and guaranteed to work

That can't be done with software AFAIK. If you want to erase your disk with

software, you need to overwrite the entire disk, which takes a long time.

In Linux, you could do

 

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/yourdrive

(overwrites the drives with zeroes, can take a few hours),

 

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/yourdrive

(overwrites the drive with random data, can take several days).

EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that you can use some additional params

for dd, this is just an example

/EDIT

For fast destruction, you need to physically destroy the drive,

no way around that (electromagnets, thermite, w/e).

Alternatively: Properly encrypt your data.

[Norwegiantweaker]

That can't be done with software AFAIK. If you want to erase your disk with

software, you need to overwrite the entire disk, which takes a long time.

In Linux, you could do

 

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/yourdrive

(overwrites the drives with zeroes, can take a few hours),

 

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/yourdrive

(overwrites the drive with random data, can take several days).

EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that you can use some additional params

for dd, this is just an example

/EDIT

For fast destruction, you need to physically destroy the drive,

no way around that (electromagnets, thermite, w/e).

Alternatively: Properly encrypt your data.

 

iguess ur right about it taking along time. what about just completely ruining the data?.

well yeah could just use Truecrpyt on all drives. would be safer for sure but its kinda fun to just watch it all get deleted with a fancy cmd window lol

[alpenwasser]

iguess ur right about it taking along time. what about just completely ruining the data?.

Well, the only way to properly 'ruin' your data (i.e. make it unrecoverable

for forensic tools) is either a proper and complete wipe, or thorough physical

destruction.

well yeah could just use Truecrpyt on all drives. would be safer for sure but its kinda fun to just watch it all get deleted with a fancy cmd window lol

If fun is your objective, then this is an entirely different discussion.

If your objective is to prevent others from grabbing your data (or parts

of it), then see above. For having fun with deleting files, I can't really

help you with that.

[Norwegiantweaker]

Well, the only way to properly 'ruin' your data (i.e. make it unrecoverable

for forensic tools) is either a proper and complete wipe, or thorough physical

destruction.

If fun is your objective, then this is an entirely different discussion.

If your objective is to prevent others from grabbing your data (or parts

of it), then see above. For having fun with deleting files, I can't really

help you with that.

no the objective is to completely ruin the harddrive haha. but witout actually costing urselg hundreds of dollars in parts . but yeah iguess it would take along time to wipe it, hmmh, that kinds sucks, but when i think about it its alot of data that needs to be deleted. isnt there a way on Windows to do it ?. maybe someting along the same lines of zero'ing it out ?.

[alpenwasser]

no the objective is to completely ruin the harddrive haha. but witout actually costing urselg hundreds of dollars in parts . but yeah iguess it would take along time to wipe it, hmmh, that kinds sucks, but when i think about it its alot of data that needs to be deleted. isnt there a way on Windows to do it ?. maybe someting along the same lines of zero'ing it out ?.

I'm sure there are tools for windows that do this, but in the end they will

need to do the exact same thing on the HDD itself (meaning overwrite the entire

platter surface) to get the job done, so they won't be significantly faster as

far as I can tell. As I have rarely used Windows in the last few years I'm not

very familiar with that ecosystem anymore, so somebody else will need to chime

in on that one.

[Art Vandelay]

unscrew your hard drives, take the platters out, break them with a hammer, then throw the shards into the ocean.

 

Alternatively, plug the hard drives into another computer and download something like Eraser and go over every file. 

[Norwegiantweaker]

unscrew your hard drives, take the platters out, break them with a hammer, then throw the shards into the ocean.

 

Alternatively, plug the hard drives into another computer and download something like Eraser and go over every file. 

lol

[alpenwasser]

unscrew your hard drives, take the platters out, break them with a hammer, then throw the shards into the ocean.

Alternatively...

(equipment like this is used by banks and other institutions

handling very sensitive data when they take HDDs out of service.)

[Art Vandelay]

Alternatively...

(equipment like this is used by banks and other institutions

handling very sensitive data when they take HDDs out of service.)

Theoretically, you could still manually read the data off those shards.

 

I'd bet if you had a powerful enough fluctuating magnetic field, you could make it impossible to ever read the data again.

[alpenwasser]

Theoretically, you could still manually read the data off those shards.

Yeah, but getting anything actually useful out of these platters will

be ridiculously expensive. Since you can't rotate them anymore you're

getting that data will require some serious forensic equipment and a

lot of time.

But yeah, the bits are still there (unless of course the machine also

has an electromagnet inside that is not shown, but I doubt that).

I'd bet if you had a powerful enough fluctuating magnetic field, you could make it impossible to ever read the data again.

For sure. I actually read an article about data erasing on modern HDDs,

and it basically said that the magnetic regions which make up the individual

bits on today's HDDs are so small that even a single disk wipe with zeroes

or random data would already suffice to make the data irrecoverable, the

residual magnetic strength of the old data would not be strong enough to

be picked up anymore.

Unfortunately I do not have any reliable hard data to support that statement,

so I recommend it to be taken with a grain of salt, but still, when I do a

proper disk wipe, I don't do more than three passes these days.

[Art Vandelay]

Yeah, but getting anything actually useful out of these platters will

be ridiculously expensive. Since you can't rotate them anymore you're

getting that data will require some serious forensic equipment and a

lot of time.

But yeah, the bits are still there (unless of course the machine also

has an electromagnet inside that is not shown, but I doubt that).

 

It really depends why the FBI is looking at your hard drive. Some things are worth spending massive amounts of money to get back. Very little would actually warrant that, though.

 

For sure. I actually read an article about data erasing on modern HDDs,

and it basically said that the magnetic regions which make up the individual

bits on today's HDDs are so small that even a single disk wipe with zeroes

or random data would already suffice to make the data irrecoverable, the

residual magnetic strength of the old data would not be strong enough to

be picked up anymore.

Unfortunately I do not have any reliable hard data to support that statement,

so I recommend it to be taken with a grain of salt, but still, when I do a

proper disk wipe, I don't do more than three passes these days.

Apparently there's a way to recover the original data, even if you overwrite the data with random data. that's why eraser goes over the file a bunch of times to prevent anyone from reading it

 

Then again, you could just encrypt your data.

[Norwegiantweaker]

It really depends why the FBI is looking at your hard drive. Some things are worth spending massive amounts of money to get back. Very little would actually warrant that, though.

 

Apparently there's a way to recover the original data, even if you overwrite the data with random data. that's why eraser goes over the file a bunch of times to prevent anyone from reading it

 

Then again, you could just encrypt your data.

its becomming more and more apperent that you will benefit more fomr just encrypting the whole machine hehe

[LePawel]

You make sure your hard drive reside in external cages, and have some archer-grade spring loaded heavy duty heavy-ass bolt right above it, with a big red button next to you that release the mechanism, which effectively pierces through the hard drives, breaking all platters, sending debris all over the room and potentially severely injuring you and anyone in immediate vicinity.

Or anything less medieval that can also physically damage platters on the HDD. Tesla Coil? Silenced Gun? a Sledgehammer which can also be used as self defense after the act.

Whatever you come up with, please make sure to put a raspberry pi-powered recorder with auto-upload-to-youtube function next to it so we can see how it worked out if you'll have to use it