Northwest Dive Club

The thread on Shredding started something. Time to see if we can finish it.

Personal information security is important. How important most people don't realize until they have a problem. At the same time industry/business works hard to get info. Prime examples are "apps" that are marketed as making things easier and faster. Sometimes they do that. But when you read their Permissions you realize you have given away the store for that convenience.

Another hole is in disposing of old computers. The hard drives are often removed and mined for whatever useful data they contain. So, either wiping the drive or destroying it is important. Which brings us to the current question: Is there a way to securely wipe a solid state hard drive like the one in the computer I am using for this post?

As of this moment I have not found any way to securely wipe the drive so I can sell it to someone else. So, since I really don't need it any more, it seems the only two options are to find another use for it, or destroy the computer. Destroying a perfectly good Surface Pro 2 seems a waste. But...

A little old, but no less valid for your application.

http://security.stackexchange.com/quest ... ete-a-file

Marc

The reference supports my experience and what I've found on this iteration.
>It isn't easy to securely wipe a hard drive.
>Currently there is no way to securely wipe a SSD.

Guess these computers are designed as disposable commodities.

There is some 3rd party stuff out there that should work, but I haven't looked at anything that wasn't an enterprise solution in a long time. There should be a few "trial versions".

Cheers

Yes indeed a "trial version" is just what I want to erase my private information before giving the device to a stranger.

Just drill a couple of holes in it and bury it in your kitchen garbage. Old hard drives are not actually a rich source of personal data. When identify thieves go for data they want thousands of people, hence hacking into Target and Premera etc.

Have you taken a good look at Parted Magic? Sounds promising...

Securely erasing an old hard disk is a job best performed with special customized hardware, not software.

This has been educational, sort of. Reinforced what I thought I knew. Now I'm fairly certain I know what I know.
The old shred the hard drive is the only way to assure security.
The several media pieces showing people in South Asia stripping hard drives from recycled computers, copying information and selling it show a practice still in force.
Amazing how many people still believe the myth that personal data mining only goes on wholesale. Of course reading the permissions on those Apps that promise speed and convenience tell the user the price paid is giving access to essentially all data in the device.

So, to end this, hopefully, I'm back where I started. Find another use internally or destroy. In the scheme of things a couple hundred dollars isn't that much compared to potential losses.