R: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 03/26/2018 05:58 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote:
>> NSA has been successful enough that the concept "DOD Wipe" as was found
>> in programs like Gformat from Ghost no longer exists.
> Bill,
>
> Are you saying that the NSA can recover data from a HDD that has been erased and been written over multiple times?
>
>

That's what we were told when I was still with DOD.  No number of overwrites
made it impossible.  No disk that ever contained classified information 
could
ever be let out of containment.  Other than melting them down the only 
method
I ever heard of or saw that could truly erase a disk was passing them 
through
the ship deguasser at the Navy Yard.  And, after that the disk was not 
only clean,
it was unusable.

bill