Article View: cle.general
Article #1476Re: 60 Minutes says that "E-Mail is not private."
From: dionisio
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 00:00
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 00:00
38 lines
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2236 bytes
Jamie (jamie@multiverse.com) said:
}If a bit on a disk has been overwritten, it's gone man. Ain't no comin'
}back from the dead :-)
True enough with standard tools. However, there will still remain a slight
trace of the original charge due to the pesky conventions of modern
physics. The magnetic field of the affected bits will be slightly
deflected from the plane that non-affected bits will be in. Thus, it is
tracable and detectable over a fair portion of the disk. (Even bulk
erasing doesn't quite truely erase a disk. And, a bulk eraser that *could*
effectively eliminate all traces of the data would have two main problems;
A) The thing would be very expensive, both in cost-of-operation and in
cost-of-building/purchasing, and B) It would also have the nasty side
effect of wiping out the data stored on any magnetic media within about 10
feet, and probably skewing some data located an additional 5 feet away
(providing one designs the thing with no trace of EMP; just a slow buildup
and letdown of power. An EMP-based design might actually make things
worse. You might end up deleting the computer.)
There are people who charge $500/hour for such data recovery, and they
tend to retrieve 90+%.
Trust me, I went to college for this. Don't believe that the explaination
is true? Run it by a digital electronics professor, or even a person with
a mere BS in Electronics.
--
<a href="http://www.infinet.com/~dionisio">Finger</a> for PGP public key
And the Thought of the Moment (tm) is...
"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
-- Bill Vaughan
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 108bc6,4891bd7719641fef X-Google-Attributes: gid108bc6,public From: dionisio@infinet.com () Subject: Re: 60 Minutes says that "E-Mail is not private." Date: 1996/06/22 Message-ID: <4qftvl$mjq@news1.infinet.com> X-Deja-AN: 161533646 references: <4q91jg$68t@madeline.INS.CWRU.Edu> <4q94pt$70c@dilbert.multiverse.com> <4qaqbq$a1b@news1.infinet.com> <4qbr8c$58t@dilbert.multiverse.com> organization: InfiNet Systems, Columbus, Ohio, USA newsgroups: cle.general