[ARCHIVED THREAD] - SCRAM software for emergencies? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 11/14/2003 9:57:14 AM EDT
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I'm looking for a piece of software that will fit on a 3.5" floppy, that once executed will wipe and repeatedly overwrite an HDD, and once it's started it acts quickly with no prompts or outward sign that it's doing its job until it's too late. Erasing itself from the 3.5" when it's executing would be good too. Anyone know where I could get something like this, or be willing to code it for me? TIA QS |
Why do you have a pistol? Self-defense. |
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Open Notepad. @echo off cd C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND format c: Save as: autoexec.bat This will work, save it as "autoexec.bat" and copy that file to a 3.5" floppy. When you insert that disk into the floppy drive and reboot the machine it will boot from the floppy and automatically run the autoexec.bat file. Once that gets started it will start erasing things. Good luck testing it out. ZRH - yours might work, but after you deltree c: you probably won't be able to run the format c: because the c:\windows\command dir will no longer exist. Any script which is saved as autoexec.bat will automatically run when booted from a 3.5 floppy. |
There is no such thing as "secure encryption". Its a myth. The ONLY way to secure a HD is to wipe it, fill it with 1's and 0's then degause... Even filled with 1's and 0's old data can still be retrieved. You must wave a VERY strong magnet over the HD to make sure all data is gone. |
Data still can be extracted from the drive. There are a few company's that do that for a living. One of them was advertising that the have done this(drive with bullet hole). Best way is to beat the living piss out of it with a sledgehammer. QuietShooter. I have a DOD approved wipe program on floppy. It does take some user help. If interested I can shoot it over. |
You might attempt to put PGPWipe onto the same diskette. It can be used to overwrite files once to numerous times. I use that for normal deletions anyway. No sense in leaving ANYTHING useable on a computer. Also, all of my files are encrypted. |
I know. It's taken care of. |
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Best solution is a VCR tape eraser/TV degausing tool... Basically, a BIG ASS ELECTROMAGNET that runs on 120VAC.... Wipes hard drives, videotapes, etc... For a software solution, tomsrtbt or any other single-floppy-linux type system will work... just run 'dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda'... Ka-boom, your HDD gets erased with random gibberish... |
| It's probably not a good idea to do it to computers at work when you are leaving. I've known companies to give bad references on people doing that, and you know how hard it is to get any kind of reference out of companies these days. And I know of one instance where they prosecuted a guy that destroyed company property on a computer. The Feds even got involved because it had gov't contract data on it. |
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The tinkerer's approach: THE ACID DUMP. It consists of a sealed container filled with acid that will most assuredly eat the aluminum platters in a hard drive, with a tight, leakproof valve on the bottom of it with a ripcord attached to the valve handle. The output of the valve is connected via acid resistant tubing to a fill port installed on the cover of the hard drive. R/C aircraft hobby supply shops should have everything you need, including even suitable valves, or so I'd imagine. The container has enough capacity to completely fill the hard drive. A small fill port is attached to the top of the hard drive's cover. Now this gets a bit tricky: the cover has to come off the hard drive so the fill port can be drilled or punched without contaminating the drive with shavings. This would be done in the cleanest room you can get into, and you would cover the drive with a very clean container while working on the cover. Extreme cleanliness is needed while working. Install the fill port, put the cover back on with great care, and hope no dust of any consequence has gotten into the drive. Just to see how resistant drives really are to dust, I've taken old drive with nothing valuable on them, removed their covers, and run them in a PC until they crapped. A PC with no case. Some have run for WEEKS before glitching. A software method that should work would include putting the following on your "kill floppy": The disk is bootable. Includes a PATH command for all functions you'll need. That PATH points to the floppy you're running off of. Insert disk, hit reset. Disk boots. Loads up command.com and sets the path to the floppy. Runs autoexec.bat, which does the following: Deltree c: Format c: /u cd a: Format a: /u It's been a while since I've messed much with DOS commands like that, but this should be at least very close to what will work. Another option is to auto-partition the hard drive to something different than what's already on it. That'll make the current FAT unrecoverable. CJ |
You can take adult education classes for your reading comprehension problems. Here's the original post: "I'm looking for a piece of software that will fit on a 3.5" floppy, that once executed will wipe and repeatedly overwrite an HDD, and once it's started it acts quickly with no prompts or outward sign that it's doing its job until it's too late. Erasing itself from the 3.5" when it's executing would be good too. Anyone know where I could get something like this, or be willing to code it for me? TIA QS" I see no mention of company computer, or him mentioning anything other than wanting to erase "his" stuff. I had a similar program for my old Mac's when it contained sensitive photograhic data. I have also sought the same thing for a PC, but have not worried enough about it, as I have nothing on my comp that couldn't also be gotten with properly executed warrants, or a little inventive lying.... You should let your imagination cool out. |
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As has been mentioned, a format will do nothing. It deletes the allocation table. The data still exists, and is quite recoverable. The best bet is, as mentioned, beat the living piss out of it with a hammer, which is only second to dumping a 30 rounder of M855 through the platters. Sofware wise, you want a wipe utility. I do have a CD rom cd that boots and will wipe everything 7 times with random data, DoD approved and used. Biggest problem is time. Do you have any idea how long it takes to wipe a drive? For shits nad giggles, i ran the utility on an 8 gig hard drive. To thouroughly wipe 7 times took several hours. if you've got time, wipe then destroy. if SHTF, MAG DUMP. |
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In a real emergency situation, where the computer itself is expendable, there's always the old fashioned way: Throw the computer into a wood chipper with a trash can on the end of the chute. Any selected parts that need another pass, give them another pass through the chipper. And then throw the leftovers on a bonfire. Nobody's recovering any data from that. That's one advantage of a PC with removable drive sleds...just yank the sled out and do something drastic to it. Fire up the grille and have a byte barbecue. If the platters reach a certain temperature, all the magnetic domains on them will totally randomize beyond any hope of recovering any data from them. Or, perhaps simplest of all, get the big industrial type bulk tape eraser out, pull the drive sled out, lay it on the table, and take the bulk eraser to it. But some drives have pretty good magnetic shielding. However those shields usually can be pried off the drive cover with a screwdriver in a jiffy. CJ |
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I once thought about this. But there is nothing on the system that needs that kind of protection. Keep in mind several points: If you are prudent and have made backups those must be elsewhere on destroyed also. If on a floppy, the boot order must list the floppy as the first boot device. Booting from a floppy is slow... ALL programs which write zeros or otherwise wipe a drive take a fair amount of time to run... In place of a floppy you might want to make up a custom "El Torito" bootable CD with your dooms day batch routine. - it allows lager programs to be used. - Also, many systems have the CDrom before the HDD in the boot order. Lastly - the easy thing to do would be mount the drive in a pullout tray - pull it. You can all ways zap it - smash it or otherwise destroy the drive. Consider having one of these...  and pull out the drive, zap it, then pop it back in the system. The data on the platters should still be intact - but "OnTrack" and other data recovery places charge in excess of $20 per megabyte, Now how many Gigs was that drive? |
www.killdisk.com/features.htm
Removable drive sled kinda sounds better. Remove drive, toss in fireplace and lite up. No fuss, no muss. |
| Gee Shivan you never cease to amaze me. Did you read the whole thread? Can you think of any other situation where you might want to destroy the data but not the machine if you are in a hurry? If it's your machine you can use any variety of removable disks or drives and physically destroy them beyond recovery quicker than any of the mentioned programs or rourines can. The only time you can't use the far more effective methods are when it isn't your computer, ergo it is with a machine at work or somebody else's machine. |
Yes, read the entire thing. Did you read any of it? Maybe QS is fearful that the .gov might kick in his door, AT HIS HOUSE, and might try to look at personal documents, or might try to find how much cash he paid for personal sale handguns, or whatever. That is the first thing I thought of. Even after you made your FIRST assumption, and he flatly told you that "he had no idea what you were talking about", you proceeded toi chastise him more, based on your assumptions. The ONLY part that needed to be read was the original post. That is the only thing you needed to make an intelligent response. You chose to interject your assumptions and gave some off the wall chastising for a problem that may or may not exist. Get it? |
One word: Thermite.  Don't count on encryption or wiping programs. Wiping can work but it really has to be done right; there are govt regs for wiping HDs with sensitive info before they are put out for surplus. HDs with classified data, forget it; they don't trust the wiping procedure for that. Those disks are just destroyed. IIRC, all commercial encryption software is required to have a backdoor for .gov, so don't put your money there. The best answer is indeed a big-assed electromagnet. It destroys data on the disk in a way that can't be done through the computer interface. |
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with the advanced snooping tools the feds have now this is pretty much a useless endeavor. If they have reason to want a no knock odds are they are already in you pc if you have net access. I figure next time my pc crashes i'll call the doj and see if they have a backup i can restore. mike |
Sweet! Our taxpayer dollars at work. 
This this the best method for more than one reason. In the event of a natural disaster, you can pull the drive and go. The rest of the box can be replaced. The drive docks run about $20. Secondly, if you have sensitive data to protect, you can pull the drive and lock it up in a safe. You can also use a decoy drive, simply pull the sensitive drive and stash it, leave the decoy drive in place. Finally, if you have to destroy the drive, you can quickly pull it and fire a few rounds thru it. Now keep in mind, this will work for most kinds of data. Illegal forms of pornography is one exception. Internet crimes division of the FBI can track the data stream from the illegal source to the end user, observe & document the data and even though they may not find it on the computer, as long as they can prove that you were home at the time the data was transmitted, they can prosecute you in court. Not every illegal download of data gets saved, persons trying to avoid arrest & prosecution have used RAM disks to retreive & view data and all they had to do was hit the power switch to destroy the evidence. Hence the need to identify & track the data from it's source to it's destination. One other note, if you have sensitive information that you need to protect, those little pocket drives that plug into the USB port are handy. |
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Shooting the drive with (9mm/45/5.56/7.62/etc.) won't work. "Erasing" the drive with a "bigass" magnet won't work. Formatting the drive won't work. Even overwriting the drive with various bits of data isn't always reliable. This, however, is : http://driveslag.eecue.com/articles/index.php?artid=1 |
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A couple of Telsas' worth of field strength at the platters should be quite sufficient to wipe out all data to the point where NO technology can recover it because there simply isn't any trace of the previous domain states. One of our local major government contractors (Harris Corp.) handles old hard drives that carried classified data by totally disassembling them and sandblasting the platters thoroughly. You're not reading THAT! Interestingly enough, I bought a Sun Ultra 2 workstation at surplus that had once been owned by Harris. It was a diskless workstation, having no storage in it of any kind except for a gigabyte of RAM. So, no security hazards. I needed the password that had been set by them in the firmware so I could do something else with it. I called the appropriate office (Got the number from a sticker that was on the case, for contacting the info services department for help if needed) and before long, they GAVE me the firmware password. Why not? There's no way you could use that password to access any classified data. CJ |
I don't know...I still don't think it's enough to erase that HD...we need [timthetoolmantaylor]more power[/timthetoolmantaylor] |
After what I've seen data recovery firms do, I wouldn't be "tin-foil sure" about a wipe job unless I had the drive apart and had band-sanded the platters. Even then, were this a gov organization I was freaking about, I would suspect that they had a copy of whatever I was hiding before they kick the door. My rule of thumb is I try not to get involved in _anything_ on a computer that I wouldn't mind being mailed piecemeal to one of the big alphabet soup orgs. Big Brother is watching, smile and wave 
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