Comments on: Darik’s Boot and Nuke

By: Koos van den Hout

Koos van den Hout — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:21:26 +0000

The ‘correct DOD procedure for hard drives with heavy secrets’ I heard was:

1. do the normal disk wiping procedures
2. use thermite, and enough to make it a lot harder to recognize as a harddrive (unlike the video above) also because high temperatures rearrange magnetic information
3. send the remaining lump of metal to a landfill with guards

at work we use DBAN, sometimes as a fully automatic network-booting image

By: Chris Chandler

Chris Chandler — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:20:14 +0000

At the University we use DBAN all the time. At the Police Station we have a different method, our Police Hard Drives get to meet a friend called Mr. Sledgehammer.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:13:59 +0000

If I was trying to make sure that the NSA could not read them there is always thermite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn8Vo2UDvj0

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:02:21 +0000

So far I’m liking the cat litter idea.

I bought some computers off of Craigslist one time and they were full of Naval (“guys on boats”, not “belly button) information, including spreadsheets with employee information and SSN’s. I tried a couple of times to call and let them know but they made it so difficult that I ended up just reformatting it and forgetting about it.

By: Brent

Brent — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:20:27 +0000

Hell, I don’t even wipe my drives before I sell them on eBay. I think it adds some nice value to leave all that pr0n on there for them. (:

By: Earl Green

Earl Green — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:04:54 +0000

I just line the bottom of the litterbox with my old drives. Theoretically, it’s not doing a thing to the data, but who the hell’s gonna want a bunch of old drives that smell like that? And sticky too. I can’t really oversell the sticky factor. Your cat could be a vital part of your data security plan.

By: Jax

Jax — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:58:11 +0000

If you are trying to hide stuff from the NSA, I would recommend driving a large metal spike through the HDD with a 8 lbs sledge, then tossing it into a large fire for a while, then running over it with a steam roller, and then burying the remains with Jimmy Hoffa. That should just about handle it effectively.

I use Killdisk for the most part when I reformat my laptop, but I use DBAN when I reformat computers for an employer or my last day on a job somewhere so that my pron collection is not found.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:30:25 +0000

I forgot all about BC Wipe — I haven’t used that in ages. It’s a really good one too. I also should have mentioned Killdisk, which I used to use a lot. It’s much quicker than DBAN but not quite as thorough. It’s good enough for hard drives you’re selling on eBay, but not good enough if you’re trying to hide data from the NSA.

By: Zeno

Zeno — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:27:59 +0000

At work our standard HDD cleaning tool is a 3-pass BC Wipe, but we also have access to DBAN if we need it. BC Wipe is also nice because along with full disk-wipes it can just wipe empty space on an active volume while leaving the volume intact.