this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
112 points (96.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43790 readers
876 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I understand traditional methods don’t work with modern SSD, anyone knows any good way to do it?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Install all your steam library to full your SSD. Should do the job. Empty the disk, rinse and repeat a few times.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

NSA requires the use of a industrial shredder that can grind the components into pieces less than 2mm.

https://ameri-shred.com/portfolio-items/2mm-ssd-solid-state-drive-hammer-mills/

If you can't do that, you should incinerate the drive at over 700 degrees.

As far as wiping goes, a 3 pass overwrite alternating 0s and 1s is good enough as long as it's done over the entire drive, not just the partition.

BCWipe is good enough for this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Dalvik boot and nuke.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

You smash it in 100 different places

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Smash it to pieces, melt it down into a blob and drop it down a borehole at the nearest quarry

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

If it's really sensitive shit, you should beat the shit out of it with a sledgehammer and make sure you got all the nand modules(see diagram online), then throw parts of it into a large body of water, deeper the better

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Bench grinder, sledgehammer, and thermite all work on phones too!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

i know this isn't what is being asked, but disk level encryption is cool

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If it's really an issue where "if the data on this SSD falls into the wrong hands, lives will be ruined" sort of thing, my favorite data security tool for this job is a bench grinder. Difficult to put the data back together when the flash chips are powder scattered throughout 14 different shop surfaces and at least two lungs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I prefer thermite. Recover my data from a messy contaminated slag heap.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Be careful with lung butter though. Been betrayed before

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Call the devices secure erase functionality.

here’s how to do it to sata and pata devices

I don’t do some of the checking and testing in that article, I just do —security-erase-enhanced and unless it fails it’s fine.

You could also encrypt the contents and delete the key.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is the correct answer. Due to wear levelling, a traditional drive wipe program isn't going to work reliably, whereas most (all?) SSDs have some sort of secure erase function.

It's been a while since I read up on it but I think it works due to the drive encrypting everything that's written to it, though you wouldn't know it's happening. When you call the secure erase function it just forgets the key and cycles in a new one, rendering everything previously written to it irrecoverable. The bonus is that it's an incredibly quick operation.

Failing that, smash it to bits.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

And if you're hiding from a nation state ... don't trust that, smash it to bits and dispose of them at different trash collection locations 🙂

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are you considering using the drive afterwards? Because “toss it in a microwave for like 5 minutes” is always a valid answer if you’re not worried about reusing it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Presumably there's a risk of damaging the microwave?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

If you want to cook with it yeah, but if it's a junk toy then it's practically indestructible

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So many people here responding with outdated misinformation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Whoever might need, for whatever reason, to write on a parchment sheet which had already been written, should take some milk and should put the parchment in it for one night’s time. As soon as it is taken out, it should be strewn with flour in order that it not be wrinkled after it begins to dry, and so as to be kept under pressure until it dries out. After it is done, the parchment will regain its former quality, shining and lucid, by means of pumice stone and chalk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Thank you I've been reading comments all day to get the right information

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago

If it is a large concern, then encryption will help. There are even drives with built-in encryption exactly for this purpose.

Otherwise, will with non-repeated data. Repeat 9 times. (A heuristic, based on something I read 10 years ago.)

Do not use repeated digits. Those are optimized out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Smash them with a hammer until they're sand.

load more comments
view more: next ›