[Cryptography] Ex-CIA Joshua Schulte Describes His Data/Crypto Hiding Prowess

Dave Horsfall dave at horsfall.org
Tue Mar 3 16:54:00 EST 2020


On Tue, 3 Mar 2020, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> > The only way to destroy data on disk is with an angle-grinder, or a 
> > furnace.  Or both...
> 
> Thermite is almost certainly easier to use.

Blimey, you don't do anything by halves, do you?

Seriously, I know someone in the data recovery business; he can handle 
just about anything short of physical destruction.  He does a roaring 
trade; at one time $BOSS had need of such a service (I think a backup tape 
was accidentally overwritten or something) and so I recommended him to the 
satisfaction of all parties[*].  And no, I did not get a spotter's fee...

Mind you, it pretty much comes down to "how much is your data worth to 
you?"....

> We should start holding thermite parties. Anyone got a suitable back 
> yard?

Not mine!  There is a fire station just around the corner from me, but I'd 
rather not put it to the test.

[*]
In a nutshell, the magnetic domains are not aligned all at once when 
overwritten; with highly sensitive read amplifiers and appropriate signal 
processing you can dig down layer by layer as it were and recover from 
multiple overwrites.

-- Dave


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