[118481] in Cypherpunks
RE: Steganos - Wiping Data
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Sep 29 15:16:05 1999
Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990929110205.00a24210@idiom.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 11:02:05 -0700
To: "'cypherpunks@eternity.net'" <cypherpunks@algebra.com>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <D104150098E6D111B7830000F8D90AE8E62A8B@exna02.securitydyna
mics.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Tim:
>> We used to have this "how to destroy a disk" discussion every few months.
>> Time for someone to ask about thermite.
>> The more things change....
Peter:
>Yep - this is one of our regular topics. I expect that the
>best answer is to *always* use some form of encrypted
>sector SW, so the cleartext is never on the disk (and think
>hard about swap and temporary files).
Lucky:
> depends on threat model
Yup.
If you're worried about the NSA Electron-microscoping your disk,
you also need to worry about the FBI busting in and seizing your machine,
so you need to use an encrypted file system anyway.
If you're not that worried, basic overwriting is fine.
The threat model used for classified military processing is different -
you normally don't have to worry about your _own_ government
busting in and seizing the machine (unless you're Ollie North),
and you use it in guarded rooms, so for non-battlefield systems
the only outsider access to the disk is after it's been discarded.
So physical discussion makes sense for them anyway.
[dead-man-switch and booby-trap discussion deleted to avoid
annoying Tim about how we've discussed it before :-)]
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
