Help with Hard Drive

[CaptainTrips]

I'm not a lawyer and have only a vague knowledge of these things... but I would imagine that won't be a good enough excuse, and you would likely face an additional charge of destruction of evidence on top of contempt of court... unless you have a very high priced lawyer.

But the evidence is the computer... I mean thats like having a safe and throwing away the key... I dont see how they could charge you if you did it before they had custody of it though...

 

[darkhollo]

Yeah if they knew it existed.

I know a cop who works child porn cases.. they(him/his dept) simply don't know enough about computer related security to be of concern. Basically they get what they can from automated tools. They kick off the tools to search for standard files/data, if jpgs of your grow aren't found by the tool or excel spreadsheets of your transactions.. they stop looking. If your shit isn't out in the open then it's of no concern. Of course if they KNOW you are using the computer for grow logs, records of sales etc then you might have a problem. I'm speaking more of people happening on your data and the possibility of increased penalties if LEO were to find your data. Aka from personal grow to dealing or having 10 years of growing chronicled.

I hate to say the phrase "security though obscurity" as this is normally deemed fairly useless, but the suggestion encrypted idea was basically to hide your data from inadvertent prying eyes by obscuring it from view. If they KNOW you have it.. then you've already fucked up elsewhere. I am talking more about someone stumbling on your data not LOOKING for it.

Also he never mentions LEO, this is a room mate finding his data. So i'm not sure how my encryption recommendation went from hide your data from your girlfriend/buddy/room mate/housekeeper to keeping your ass out of jail during a search warrant.

And truecrypt doesn't have to encrypt the WHOLE computer.. you can have an encrypted volume that is held in a file. The file must be mounted via commands. If you were to name this file like any other file... 2008taxreturn.xls and have it in a inconspicuous location on your computer, the user would have to know the existence of that volume, it's location and the commands to mount/decrypt it. So that blocks quite a few people, including most LEO.

-dh

 

[yamaha_1fan]

because the judge will simply order you to hand over the passphrase or (I believe) you could be held in contempt of the court.

I dont think so. There was some talk of this in regards to electronic items being confiscated during entry to the country and users having to give up passwords.

its self incrimination and you dont have to provide the password.

I could be wrong but I do believe a state or federal court ruled on this


The OP cant drill holes into the HD. He needs to give it back looking fine but ruined.

 

[NanoScroger]

ok take a molex plug, twist the red and yellow wires together. twist the two blacks together. attach them to a cut off extension cord. plug the molex end into the hard drive. plug the extension cord into the wall.

poof. no more hard drive. may not destroy the magnetic disk for LEO purposes but will destroy the drive for the average consumer/hobbyist/computer geek.

 

[FrankRizzo]

Here is a link to video of someone taking care of a hard drive with some thermite.

http://gizmodo.com/5050989/how-to-erase-your-data-with-thermite

I don't think they'll be able to get anything from that computer.....

 

[SpacedCWBY]

Did you zap it yet? lol... I wanna see some pics, it's got me wanting to find a HD to fry.

 

[Karma Withakay]

I dont think so. There was some talk of this in regards to electronic items being confiscated during entry to the country and users having to give up passwords.

its self incrimination and you dont have to provide the password.

Again, I'm no lawyer... but I'm 99.9% sure you're way wrong. I've worked in the computer security industry and know that hiding evidence from the law through data encryption is simply security through obscurity (i.e., oftentimes even worse than no security at all).

That is, as long as the penalties for not cooperating are >= data's value you're trying to hide.

 

[flexo]

If you don't want to destroy the drive there are programs out there that will wipe the HDD as many times over as you'd like (i'd recommend atleast 20 wipes for those paranoid folks) and then dump random data on the HDD.

If the HDD is huge the process is going to take hours and even sometimes days.

google it you'll find tons of apps.

 

[NanoScroger]

Did you zap it yet? lol... I wanna see some pics, it's got me wanting to find a HD to fry.

i used to work in car audio, and whenever we wanted to warranty a sub we would plug it into the wall outlet and let it cycle at 60hz until she fragged herself into submission. pretty entertaining shit. a 15 with a good amount of travel is hard to beat

 

[darkhollo]

In regards to forcing you to hand over passwords ...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html


This article implies that it's a grey area.. but that it likely violates your 5th amendment to require a pass phrase.

not sure if bush has passed some new bs around this... just saying there is weight to yamaha's comments.

 

[Polishdankchron]

Buy the computer from him

 

[smoke3]

if ur not tech savy get a drill and drill a small whole into the drive and reinstall it. or go to walamrt by a cheap drive and switch it. or the magnet option

 

[SpacedCWBY]

i used to work in car audio, and whenever we wanted to warranty a sub we would plug it into the wall outlet and let it cycle at 60hz until she fragged herself into submission. pretty entertaining shit. a 15 with a good amount of travel is hard to beat

Lol - That sounds like fun. I can see where a deep 15 could really be a good show. Never did one that big, but putting a 3 1/2" dash speaker on to a 250w alpine really made that little cone fly - right out the mount that is. Good fun.

 

[SpacedCWBY]

Again, I'm no lawyer... but I'm 99.9% sure you're way wrong. I've worked in the computer security industry and know that hiding evidence from the law through data encryption is simply security through obscurity (i.e., oftentimes even worse than no security at all).

That is, as long as the penalties for not cooperating are >= data's value you're trying to hide.

I've got a 3 1/2" floppy that you can boot to that will allow you to reset any of the passwords on a windows box. Pretty tricky stuff - I don't know what it does, but it works. You'd think that the feds woulc have that too.

 

[Machine Elf]

This is very interesting to read.

It was previously my impression that reformatting a HD removes all information from a HD and after formatting it cannot be recovered through any means, the information is gone for good. Can anyone state why such is true or not true?

What does formatting really do if it doesn't remove/overwrite anything?

This is why viruses and the like are completely removed upon formatting (are they not??). If such is not the case, why couldn't someone make a virus that can "survive" a formatting and reinstall, perpetually corrupting a HD.

As well, why is it that HD space is cleared upon formatting if information is still there? Wouldn't the space already be used up and unable to be wrote to once data is placed on the drive?

I am aware that deleted information is still not truly deleted until it is overwritten by other data (yet someone says such overwritten data can still be recovered, so how/why?).

Are there any computer gurus or hackers that can explain or source this information easily without myself having to find the appropiate literature?

 

[flexo]

you are right, when you delete a file or program all the PC does is tell the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to use those sectors for writing new files or moving existing files to.

Like I mentioned before and with a little Googling you will see that there are tons of programs on the net that will wipe particular sectors with random information as many times as you'd like.

That way the sectors that held your illegal information or files are written to with random data over and over again thus overwriting your original files.

One free one is SpyBot S&D, the is a feature in the program that allows you to do exactly what I just mentioned, check it out.

I used to know of a program the US Government used but I have since forgot the name, it was a very useful app but it wasnt free and they are not cheap all the time. Thats why I use SpyBot S&D now, not only will it get rid of spyware but it also wipes files.

SpyBotS&D:
-Under Advanced Mode
-Go to Tools and choose "Secure SHredder"
-Add files to the list
-Choose how many passes (wipes to particular sectors on the HDD).
-Chop it Away!!!

 

[flexo]

On the formatting note depending on what kind of format it is. Using Windows to format, it only offers quick and deep format. The quick only makes all sectors on the HDD writable without wriing to them at all, when you do a deep or long format it erases the data from the HDD.

But like you said the information is still there, you'd have to do a few deep formats then dump a huge image of random data on the HDD just to make sure its all wiped. Certain programs offer the option to format an entire HDD so many times over then dump an image onto it still leaving the HDD useable.

You can physically destroy but before you bring the hamer to it put a very strong magnet on it or throw it in a fire. Then split the HDD open and crack the platters into many pieces.

Good Luck!!!