Wiping a hard drive?

[Arno Wagner]

Arno says:

For your purposes, that should suffice.
But I'm sure there are forensic
technicians who are smiling at that.

How do you know what my purposes are? And actually the
forensics experts c't magazime asked a few years back
all said "not a chance"....

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

It's interesting that both you guys are foreigners, and you're
both saying "Prove it".

I beg to differ. Everybody is a foreigner on the Internet. Or are you
arrogant enough to think that the Internet belongs to your country?

Arno

 

[Timothy Daniels]

How do you know what my purposes are?

Who cares? They're obviously not of interest to anyone.

And actually the forensics experts c't magazime asked
a few years back all said "not a chance"....

Never heard of "c't magazime". And for your edification,
people who know those things like to keep their
capabilities a secret.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I beg to differ. Everybody is a foreigner on the Internet. Or are you
arrogant enough to think that the Internet belongs to your country?

Yes. We funded and did the research that developed it.
To start with, where do you think the RFCs are administered?
Hint: Her name is Joyce Roberts. But don't even start, Arno.
I'm not going to tell you any secrets.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Arno Wagner wrote

Who cares? They're obviously not of interest to anyone.

Never heard of "c't magazime".

Your pig ignorance is your problem, child.

And for your edification, people who know those things like to keep their capabilities a secret.

Pathetic, really.

 

[Rod Speed]

Arno Wagner wrote

Yes.

More fool you.

We funded and did the research that developed it.

Completely and utterly irrelevant.

To start with, where do you think the RFCs are administered?

Completely and utterly irrelevant.

Hint: Her name is Joyce Roberts. But don't even start, Arno. I'm not going to tell you any
secrets.

You dont know a single one, child.

 

[Aidan Karley]

Never heard of "c't magazime".

Says more about you than it does about Arno.

But yes, the spooks do like to keep quiet what they actually can
do. Which is why I take the total silence over breachability of PGP'd
messages as absolutely no evidence of anything. There's a similar near
total silence over people being convicted on evidence form "encrypted"
zip files, and I regularly break those open myself.

 

[Aidan Karley]

the U.S. Department of Defense, I have read in several
magazine articles over the years, requires a minimum
number of random data overwrites, not just one overwrite,
and not the same data over and over.

The US DoD (and the British Army) only order condoms in 3 sizes
{small, medium and large}, but are labelled as {normal, large and
extra-large}. Which of the following two hypotheses best explains this
situation ? :
1 - The Military (in general) obey different laws of
anthropometry and physics to the rest of the known universe:
2 - Military (general) procurement procedures do not always
proceed by demonstrable logic, or remain in place after their original
rationales have been superseded by changes in technology.

I'll bet that both US and UK military regulations still have a
lot to say about the care, feeding and use of pack-mules.

 

[Aidan Karley]

Yes. We funded and did the research that developed it.

Apart from the stuff (around 15% of the original) that was
developed at the UK Post Office (now BT), and at the various
universities of Manchester and London.
Go back and read the names and affiliations on some of the first
thousand RFCs.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Who cares? They're obviously not of interest to anyone.

So that is your angle. Well, I think you do not deserve any
answers from me in the future....

Never heard of "c't magazime".

Your loss.

And for your edification,
people who know those things like to keep their
capabilities a secret.

Oh, being mysterious now, are we. "I am right because you cannot
proove there are people that can do what I claim and they will
not admit it." Pretty convenient, if true. Unfortunately for you,
the argument is bogus for most applications, since if they want
tto keep what they can do secret, then they cannot use their
capabilities in most cases! It is called "protecting a source" and
also applies to technical means of information gathering....

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Says more about you than it does about Arno.

But yes, the spooks do like to keep quiet what they actually can
do. Which is why I take the total silence over breachability of PGP'd
messages as absolutely no evidence of anything.
Indeed.

There's a similar near
total silence over people being convicted on evidence form "encrypted"
zip files, and I regularly break those open myself.

But it is well known in the crypto and computer security comminuty
that those can be broken. For that reason they can be used by the
"spooks", since they do not admit to a new capability. That the general
public is clueless does not mean the information is unavailable.

If they can breach PGP, they cannot use the information they
get, except in very important cases. Otherwise people could deduct
that they can beak PGP and this information source would dry up.

The other thing is cost: If it takes 1 million EUR/USD to recover a
overwritten once HDD, you are pretty safe, since nobody will invest
that for the slim chance of finding anything useful. On the other
hand, people with real secrets will more likely stay away from
computers or do physical destruction. This will drive the recovery
cost and success way up. Or if they know anything, they will blowtorch
the platters. No way in this universe to recover anything.

So to reiterate, overwriting once with zeros is enough, unless
you protect extremely valuable secrets and a resourceful attacker
knows they might be on that specific disk....

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Yes.

Well, good luck if that is ever put to the test. I think IANA could
be replaced pretty fast. All othr stuff does not need the US at all.
You might find you country disconnected pretty fast.

We funded and did the research that developed it.
To start with, where do you think the RFCs are administered?

So? Ever counted the number of European and other non-US RFC
authors? And do you really believe the RFC system would stop working
if the US suddenly dropped it?

Hint: Her name is Joyce Roberts.

Ooooh, being mysterious again. But this cannot hide the emptyness
behind your statements.

But don't even start, Arno.
I'm not going to tell you any secrets.

I don't think you can.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Nice info source there, Tim. I, and doublessly several others here,
have simply read the relevant DOD standard. "Magazine articles",
indeed.

The US DoD (and the British Army) only order condoms in 3 sizes
{small, medium and large}, but are labelled as {normal, large and
extra-large}. Which of the following two hypotheses best explains this
situation ? :
1 - The Military (in general) obey different laws of
anthropometry and physics to the rest of the known universe:
2 - Military (general) procurement procedures do not always
proceed by demonstrable logic, or remain in place after their original
rationales have been superseded by changes in technology.

I'll bet that both US and UK military regulations still have a
lot to say about the care, feeding and use of pack-mules.

The swiss military abandoned the actual animals two or three years
ago, so the manual should still be around somewere...

Arno

 

[Timothy Daniels]

So to reiterate, overwriting once with zeros is enough, unless
you protect extremely valuable secrets and a resourceful attacker
knows they might be on that specific disk....

Oh, so now you add, "unless you protect extremely valuable secrets...".
Why now the conditional clause? Previously you had just that
writing zeroes was enough.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Apart from the stuff (around 15% of the original) that was
developed at the UK Post Office (now BT), and at the various
universities of Manchester and London.
Go back and read the names and affiliations on some of the first
thousand RFCs.

More to the point, the first RFCs were written by researchers at
the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and they
were funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
in development of ArpaNet. And ARPA later became DARPA -
the Defense (spelled with an "s") Advanced Research Projects
Agency of the U.S.A. Unfortunately, the Internet was never named
the BTnet or the PostOfficeNet or the ManchesterNet, but it was
named the "Internet" when we let you guys in.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Arno Wagner]

Oh, so now you add, "unless you protect extremely valuable secrets...".
Why now the conditional clause? Previously you had just that
writing zeroes was enough.

It is rather obvious, can't you guess? Hint: I am not contradicting
myself...

Arno

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It is rather obvious, can't you guess? Hint: I am not contradicting
myself...

No, you're flattering yourself.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It's interesting that both you guys are foreigners,

Ahh, America, the world .....

Very mature answer, kid. Now go sulk with your parents.

and you're both saying "Prove it".

You sure you're not related to the Bush clan, Daniels?

 

[Rod Speed]

Aidan Karley wrote


More to the point, the first RFCs were written by researchers at
the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and they
were funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
in development of ArpaNet. And ARPA later became DARPA -
the Defense (spelled with an "s") Advanced Research Projects
Agency of the U.S.A. Unfortunately, the Internet was never named
the BTnet or the PostOfficeNet or the ManchesterNet, but it was
named the "Internet" when we let you guys in.

Irrelevant to that stupid pig ignorant claim of yours at the top.

The funding was in fact close to irrelevant anyway.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hello, Arno:

Hell, yes! The USA's very own, Al Gore, invented the Internet, all by
himself. <g>

What's the matter, don't you keep up with world events, over there, in
isolationist Switzerland?

No, we are so backwards, we actually have our own Internet
infrastructure. It seems all the other countries in Europe are
just as bad.

Arno