On Jan 20 at 14:55, Erik Norgaard launched this into the bitstream: > Colin J. Raven wrote: > >> Eh? Surely you don't meant trashed - physically annihilated? >> Phew! I believe in radical solutions certainly, but..umm..isn't that going >> just a little bit too far? :-) >> I'm assuming you mean destructively formatted... > > You always have to classify the data and take appropriate measures, as well > as consider the costs of various methods of data destruction. > > It may actually be cheaper to melt the disks and by new ones rather than > do a destructive format. Remember, if you have no trust relation with the > ones who receive the pc's then the trusted employee will most likely be one > from your organization and high paid. > > It has happened that companies have shipped of a load of used pc's for > reuse in poor countries and then sensitive data has reappeared where it > shouldn't, causing more than just embarasment to the original owner. > > If a harddisk contains sensitive information such as personal infor- > mation, information about your security infrastructure (passwords), or other, > then I would prefer a complete meltdown of the disk and recycle it as scrap > metal.
I always thought that formatting/fdisk'ing twice completely erased *permanently* whatever had been on the disc. You make an interesting case that previously I never thought about in any detail. Thanks for real info from the field, it's definitely food for thought! Regards, -Colin -- Colin J. Raven FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE - http://www.FreeBSD.org - There can be only One Thu Jan 20 14:59:00 CET 2005 2:59PM up 3:49, 2 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"