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On 2/1/06, Grant <emailgrant@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> Thanks Peter. That is quite contrary to what most of the other posts |
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> in this thread are saying. Those are all just rumors and myths? |
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I think for what would be available for you, me, or ${megacorp} to |
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use, yes, it is rumor and myth. As I mentioned previously, the |
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density of data on modern drives makes surface analysis (by which I |
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mean anything that does not simply read the drive with standard drive |
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electronics and and search the resulting data) very difficult. I |
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would say impossible, but we simply don't know what techniques are |
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available to the NSA or other government agencies to use. |
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Again, my *guess* is that with a *very* modern drive where the |
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manufacturers simply cannot squeeze any more data onto the platter, |
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that even the NSA would not be able to recover any data. But it may |
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be that is just what they /want/ us to think... |
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I posted this before, but it is the best and most thorough study I |
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could find on this topic: |
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http://www.simson.net/clips/academic/2003.IEEE.DiskDriveForensics.pdf |
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And another paper referenced in the above study: |
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|
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http://www.cryptoapps.com/~peter/usenix01.pdf |
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This paper talks about physical scanning of memory devices for |
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encryption keys, so is a bit off-topic (even for this off-topic |
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thread), but it should give you a hint of what kind of effort would be |
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required to try and recover overwritten data from a hard disk. |
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|
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Just a quick quote from the Peter Gutmann paper: |
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|
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---- |
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Finally, however, the best defence against data remanence problems in |
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semiconductor memory is, as with the related problem of data stored on |
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magnetic media, the fact that ever-shrinking device dimensions (DRAM |
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density is increasing by 50% per year [74]), and the use of novel |
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techniques such as multilevel storage (which is being used in flash |
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memory and may eventually make an appearance in DRAM as well [75]) is |
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making it more and more difficult |
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to recover data from devices. As the 1996 paper suggested for magnetic |
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media, the easiest way to make the task of recovering data difficult |
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is to use the newest, highest-density (and by extension most exotic) |
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storage devices available. |
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---- |
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|
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-Richard |
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|
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-- |
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