N.B. Your disagreement is with Peter's paper, not me unless I have inadvertently misrepresented what he wrote. At 2:15 AM 9/14/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:

I disagree. The methods for declassification in the Army and Defense Department security manuals included several approaches: 1) Physical destruction - acid, sandblasters, etc. 2) NSA-Approved Whopping Big Magnets

I think Peter was looking for non-destructive methods which would allow continued use of the hard disk

3) NSA-Approved Hopefully-Bugfree computer programs for some computers.

The most secure methods were the unclassified ones - after we sandblasted our RM05 disk packs, the NSA and KGB can't read anything. The less secure methods are the ones that require NSA approval - how strong is a Whopping Big Magnet this year? (Too strong to put near MY computer lab, thank you! :-)

Peter thinks this strength is to strong for practical application. He describes someone who had a strong enough research magnet which bent the platters. Since erasing the clocking tracks requires them to be rewritten at the factory, magnets do not allow reuse of hard disks.

But shredding the floppy? No need to classify that, no secrets leaked

Burn after shredding, or you have a puzzle fan reassembling the shredded disk. Hastily, but with regards - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | "Cave softly, cave safely, | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | and cave with duct tape." | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | - Marianne Russo | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA