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Lesson

74.42.179.80

Posted on November 20, 2014 at 19:26:47
LWR
Audiophile

Posts: 66808
Location: The woods
Joined: August 12, 2003
Always have had back up. My 4 year old 4TB drive that I just had made the music drive for my brand spanking new i7 2012 Mac Mini started making noises on the VERY day I had ordered a new 6TB drive for more room.
Tonight it would not mount...
No biggie as the 6TB is in transit and
My 6 TB inside my Mac Pro has all the data.
So I play CDs and SACDs for a few days
Lesson proven right....

 

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Back ups of your back ups, posted on November 21, 2014 at 06:01:23
JeffH
Audiophile

Posts: 4574
Location: Orange County, So Cal
Joined: April 5, 2000
I keep one backup in my closet and one in a "fireproof" cabinet in the garage. When I think of all the hours I spent ripping, I really don't want to go through that again...

 

ALL hard drives eventually fail -nt, posted on November 21, 2014 at 11:21:20
Feanor
Audiophile

Posts: 9794
Location: London, Ontario
Joined: June 17, 2003
Contributor
  Since:
March 12, 2004
nt



Dmitri Shostakovich

 

Not true: most are thrown away before they die -t, posted on November 21, 2014 at 13:56:09
Sordidman
Audiophile

Posts: 13665
Location: San Francisco
Joined: May 14, 2001
.


"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"

 

Based on personal use history, you might be right !, posted on November 21, 2014 at 14:11:33
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46196
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since:
February 2, 2002
I tend to retire old disks and even complete computers before they're bad. Capacity, performance, and price keep improving so there's little incentive to keep the old disks around until they fail.

On the other hand, keep 'em spinning long enough and they WILL fail.



 

We just replaced a bunch of XP machines in June , posted on November 21, 2014 at 14:31:11
Sordidman
Audiophile

Posts: 13665
Location: San Francisco
Joined: May 14, 2001
after the April "deadline."

And, - we had a bunch of 18GB hard drives: still going strong....

It's actually been a long time since I've had an HD fail.


"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"

 

RE: Not true: most are thrown away before they die -t, posted on November 21, 2014 at 17:11:45
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
You are right. At least, that's been my experience.

But so far, I have hoarded my discards rather than actually thrown them away, for fear that confidential data will somehow be extracted from the disks. I guess I need to purchase a good set of eye protectors and a large sledge hammer...

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 21, 2014 at 23:04:37
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46196
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since:
February 2, 2002
On Mac, FileVault 2 encrypts all data on disk on the fly as you create new files and folders. If you lose your laptop and someone removes the disk in an attempt to mount and retrieve data, it's darn near impossible for even a somewhat technically savvy thief.

Additonally, every Mac for as many years as I can remember has a 'secure erase' feature built into the standard 'Disk Utility'.

Securely Erase Your Disk. Note the different levels of Secure Erase


US DOE Compliant Erase


US DOD Compliant Erase



Tony compliant best practice for Disk Erase:




 

RE: Not true: most are thrown away before they die -t, posted on November 22, 2014 at 01:15:36
I disassemble the drives, keep the magnets and trash the platters for security reasons (both good and bad drives).

 

RE: You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 22, 2014 at 07:37:29
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
1. I know this whole disk encryption exists. However, without hardware support the result is a noticeable loss of performance.

2. The human factors associated with whole disk encryption yield a poor tradeoff of convenience vs. security (e.g. password strength).

3. There is no reason to believe that any "secure xyz" is actually secure after Edward Snowden's revelations. (I have known this to be the case for decades, but had no credible way of demonstrating this.) In addition, secure file erase is of dubious value due to device level revectoring games, which are the exception with spinning rust but an essential part of SSDs.

I place more faith in the sledge hammer method. However, after smashing to pieces it may be necessary to grind the results to dust and burn them. :-)


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

Good advice, posted on November 22, 2014 at 08:25:33
I have copies of my library on 5 hard drives. 3 internal, 2 external.
The fireproof safe sounds like a good idea. I'm sure it would take me more than a year of full time work to reproduce what I currently have - if I lose it I'll never get it back.

 

RE: You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 22, 2014 at 09:38:54
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46196
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since:
February 2, 2002

"1. I know this whole disk encryption exists. However, without hardware support the result is a noticeable loss of performance."

Intel processors since Westmere, circa 2010, have AES encryption extensions to the x86 architecture. In other words, hardware acceleration for AES encryption. With modern laptops and fast SSDs the performance hit isn't noticeable in most cases under typical use. If you run a disk performance test then you will 'see' a difference in MB/s for reads and writes but from the keyboard and screen as a user it's imperceptible. Some SSDs have hardware accelerated encryption built-in.

The initial whole disk encryption runs in the background but once that's complete, subsequent encryption happens 'on the fly' as the user creates new files and folders.

"2. The human factors associated with whole disk encryption yield a poor tradeoff of convenience vs. security (e.g. password strength)."

Password strength is important in any system and no more inconvenient for File Fault 2 encryption. In fact, passwords are almost irrelevant to File Vault 2's encryption mechanism. The system relies on a series of cryptographic keys granting access to two other layers of keys. These keys are the derived encryption key, the key encryption key and the volume encryption key. You enter your password and the password is converted to a derived key with the RSA Password Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF2). There are more steps but the bottom line is that it's no more inconvenient than logging in with a typically strong password.

"3. There is no reason to believe that any "secure xyz" is actually secure after Edward Snowden's revelations. (I have known this to be the case for decades, but had no credible way of demonstrating this.) In addition, secure file erase is of dubious value due to device level revectoring games, which are the exception with spinning rust but an essential part of SSDs."

The whole Snowden thing was an 'insider threat' issue, not a disk encryption issue. He had the keys. There are other mechanisms being architected to combat this problem including ways of easily monitoring, logging, and mining for every login and action by every IC insider, and raising flags on unusual activity. It's a huge problem because of the sheer number of people in the IC. It's not as simple as looking at a couple log files on a couple machines.

Any disk encryption system can be hacked (with sufficient time and tools) but the point is, why not make it difficult and not worthwhile for most thieves? All employees in the group that I work for are required to run whole disk encryption on their laptops. If you lose your laptop, you've lost the ability to delete your data or smash the disk. Why make it easy for a thief to access that data?



 

RE: You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 22, 2014 at 11:17:28
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
You entirely misunderstood the gist of my Snowden comments. I had already figured out by 1994 that the NSA was in bed with at least one major O/S company. I knew that by conversations with people "in the know" who were "split brained", i.e. had crypto security clearances. It was not hard to figure out what was going on from talking with these people, since when you got too close to the edge you could see their faces tense up. Pressing them some more, you soon reached the point where they said, "I can't discuss this any further." I suspect the processor hardware is equally untrustworthy. It only takes a single extra wire in a chip to implement a hidden trap door.

The encryption keys have to be stored somewhere. So if the disk is encrypted the key has to be unencrypted, or protected by a password that the user types in. So you may be able to discard an encrypted disk, but if so you will have to enter a strong password at boot or trust some other portion of the system that contains the encryption key.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 24, 2014 at 08:45:55
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 13158
Location: Kent
Joined: June 1, 2002
What do you expect from sellers of computer services? They are not really interested in security or audio quality.

 

RE: You can encrypt the contents, then securely erase when it's time...., posted on November 24, 2014 at 09:30:29
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46196
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since:
February 2, 2002
I had already figured out by 1994 that the NSA was in bed with at least one major O/S company.

Of course! The IC as a whole relies on several private firms and COTS solutions sometimes customized for their needs.... and as you know, often highly classified.

My point about disk encryption was why not use it since it is free, not at all intrusive, and offers a good level of protection for personal computers. At least that's the case on Mac OS, not sure what MS offers.

 

RE: Not true: most are thrown away before they die -t, posted on November 24, 2014 at 21:53:33
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 5957
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
Yep. I smash the pretty silver disks too.
They're surprisingly hard to break.
Ball pein hammer does the trick.

 

RE: Not true: most are thrown away before they die -t, posted on November 24, 2014 at 22:00:14
Yep, they are hard to break.

I did a gig for Pioneer Electronics. When the project was done, I asked what they wanted me to do with the prototype hardware. They told me to take a sledge hammer to the circuit boards and email them the pictures of the results.

 

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