Disposing of old devices

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Meat Target

Meat Target

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I got a new laptop for Christmas. Ripped and smashed up my old one, then threw it in the trash, then took a hammer to the hard drive till it rattled like there was sand inside, then doused it in lighter fluid and torched it, throwing it away in a separate bag.

Will that suffice for INFOSEC? I have some other old devices I don't want anymore.
 
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Literally all you have to do to permanently destroy a mechanical hard drive is to damage the platter(s). Pound a nail through it, or remove the metal cover and physically deface it (even a light scratch would be enough). Setting shit on fire, or destroying non-hard drive components, is highly unnecessary.
 
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why would you not just keep old laptops? They're still expensive, they take up almost no space and even 15 year old ones can still be useful today if you refurbish them at minimal cost. It's actually depressing how little CPUs have advanced in the past 20 years.

Also, you can just slow-format hardrives a couple of times over if you want to destroy everything. If they're windows based, just do whole disk encryption (not used space, all space) and then slow format over that. That'll scramble everything.
 
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Meat Target said:
I've had my credit card info stolen before. No more half-measures.
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I that case you want to get some tannerite (5lb), some local plumber supplies (pipe, cap and cement) and a fuse. mix about 2.5lb into the tube and bury the hard-drive in the mixture then add the rest of the mixture to really bury it. Now add the fuse (through the cap) and use cement to seal the caps.

dig a hole and bury the container, light the fuse and run like hell, or skip the burial and shoot it with a gun

 
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The Intern said:
I that case you want to get some tannerite (5lb), some local plumber supplies (pipe, cap and cement) and a fuse. mix about 2.5lb into the tube and bury the hard-drive in the mixture then add the rest of the mixture to really bury it. Now add the fuse (through the cap) and use cement to seal the caps.

dig a hole and bury the container, light the fuse and run like hell, or skip the burial and shoot it with a gun

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Man, I wanted to, but my Karen neighbors would complain.
 
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Meat Target said:
I've had my credit card info stolen before. No more half-measures.
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You really think some bum going through your trash is going to find your old HDD successfully perform a plater swap, do a successful data restore then break the passwords required to find that info?

Unless you're the head of a large successful business/government department or on the Forbes rich list you can probably relax. The shock from dropping it in the trash is enough.
 
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Meat Target said:
I've had my credit card info stolen before. No more half-measures.
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That'll usually happen from phishing, a malicious person handling your card, or a hacked server where it was saved, not from any kind of access to your computer. Plus, information is only ever stored on hard drives and RAM, so taking those out makes your computer a blank slate. You wasted a laptop, dummy.
 
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I've never thrown away a whole laptop or computer, but if I have to dispose of an old cell phone or electronics equipment I just wrap it in a bag and throw it in the trash. Electronics disposal centers just send that shit to the landfill anyway, might as well skip a step and make life easier.
 
Rusty Crab said:
why would you not just keep old laptops? They're still expensive, they take up almost no space and even 15 year old ones can still be useful today if you refurbish them at minimal cost. It's actually depressing how little CPUs have advanced in the past 20 years.

Also, you can just slow-format hardrives a couple of times over if you want to destroy everything. If they're windows based, just do whole disk encryption (not used space, all space) and then slow format over that. That'll scramble everything.
Click to expand...
I have a 12 year old Core@Duo laptop with Lubuntu which is just about usable for web browsing and watching YouTube, it's in good clean condition which is why it's been kept. It plays 720p videos okay but 1080p forget it they stutter and freeze.

The original hard drive was replaced with a SSD which drastically improved performance, so taking a hammer to an old hard drive is not a bad idea if it's less than 250GB or has bad sectors. There's no reason to use a mechanical hard drive other than for storage of media or backup as SSDs are quite cheap.

Hard drive wiping utilities.
DBAN
Or use a bootable Linux distro and DD.
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1M (where X is the letter of the drive to erase).

For SSD wiping you need to invoke the low level "Secure Erase" function which is built into the drive firmware of most modern hard drives mechanical and SSD.
Some HP machines have the secure erase option in the BIOS.
 
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Did it still work? If it still worked then it makes no sense to destroy it. Keep old stuff that still works around, who knows, maybe your new laptop could break down and then having a spare would be pretty handy.
 
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I sell everything I really don't need anymore, even if it's just for a few bucks and even if I don't need the money. Helps with making the trash heap grow slower. Drives I dismantle, salvage the interesting parts (screws, magnets, controller boards for passive components etc.) and the rest I throw away.
 
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Articuno4 said:
Did it still work? If it still worked then it makes no sense to destroy it. Keep old stuff that still works around, who knows, maybe your new laptop could break down and then having a spare would be pretty handy.
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It ran like Molasses on a cold day in Finland.
 
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