Tiny whiskers make huge memory storage

Trei, Peter ptrei at rsasecurity.com
Tue Feb 4 09:44:46 PST 2003


> Sunder[SMTP:sunder at sunder.net] writes
	[..]
> Yeah, yeah, yeah, lots of hype about storing terabytes and so on, not
> worried about that at all.  The real question now is this: how effective
> are these nickel whiskers are recovering erased data off existing
> platters, or more precisely how many times do we need to overwrite a disk
> now to wipe the data?
      [...]

Each time a more sensitive detector is discoverd, it's used  by
disk manufacturers to increase storage density. The tracks get finer,
the bits and the magnetic forces they generate smaller. I expect this at 
least partially cancels out the advantage that a more sensitive detector 
gives the spy.

Of course, some sensitive techniques (SQUIDs, etal) are not economic for
casual use.

Peter





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