May 2 2008

The 'Hard Disk Crusher' doesn't mess around

(Credit: OhGizmo)

Oliver North found out the hard way that erasing e-mail doesn't mean it's gone forever. And in more than two decades since, countless others have shown that they still hadn't learned that lesson.

But there is one foolproof way of confounding even the best IT sleuths: the "Hard Disk Crusher."

This no-nonsense machine from EDR Solutions does exactly what its name says, destroying a hard disk in as little as 10 seconds. "It basically 'drills' through the hard drive's spindles which physically creates ripples in the platters making it impossible to recover any data," OhGizmo says.

The Crusher can even work with an emergency hand pump in case your building is surrounded by enemy forces who have cut off the power. The only problem--and it's a big one--is its $11,500 price tag. For that kind of money, a few medium-range explosives would seem more cost-effective.

Posted in: Security
Tags: Hard Disk Crusher, EDR Solutions, hard drives
 

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 24 comments (Page 1 of 2)
by Wes#1 May 2, 2008 5:25 AM PDT
Or try a Black & Decker electric power drill: $20. Eleven grand... what a joke.
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by torrance25 May 2, 2008 5:35 AM PDT
Um, Ollie North testified before congress in 1987 about the Iran Contran Affair. Email did exist back then but, it was laughably limited, and North certainly didn't use it back then. Yamamoto's opening line about Oliver North sounds cute, but is wrong. C'mon, let's have a little more journalistic research.
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by Remo_Williams May 2, 2008 6:10 AM PDT
or a brick. or a prybar. or a good swing in a bag against the floor. seriously, this is like a fur-lined sink.
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by No Man May 2, 2008 7:06 AM PDT
Do your own research. E-mail has been used extensively by government and military officials since 1977, and was a primary means of communication between White House officials in 1986. Oliver North attempted to delete over 5,000 of them regarding activity in Iran. However, he neglected to destroy the tape backups, resulting in the subsequent scandal.
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by club50 May 2, 2008 7:29 AM PDT
Just a note.. torrance25 suggested that email didnt exist back in 1987.. Well as the administrator at SAC headquarters durinig that period I can assure you that email did exist.. The classified government in those days used a communications system called CSP.. Email packets is how almost everything travels inside the CSP structure.. From missile commands to simple supplies.. Those CSP processors are stashed around several sites around the country and handled 90% of all classified traffic.. This custom system never touched any kind of public Intra-Net or the now internet.. The government does not allow classified computers to have access to the public internet.. Email has been around since Darpa-net did the first Public connections of the Air Force academy and the space telescopes in Hawaii.. This was in the 1970's.. I personally worked on Agile-net, which became Darpa-net, which bacame the now internet. Plus Xerox had emaill running on thier Global View system in the mid 80's as well.. Of course Global View was the original Windows/Mac User interface that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both copied and made into their Windows/Mac offerings.. Xerox sued Either Microsoft or Apple (*cant remember which) for stealing thier design and won the suit.. Had Xerox not sat on their butt we would all probably be running Xerox Global View insted of what we have now.. I still have a copy of Global View that runs on Intel machies and in some respects still beats Windows or Mac... Email in the government has been around a long time before the public got a hold of it.. In fact it was Robert Metcalf at Xerox that helped developed the pop3 and smtp standards before he left Xerox and started a little company called 3Com...
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by alexmuse May 2, 2008 8:48 AM PDT
So I suggest that you save the $11,000 and just buy an $11 hammer: http://architel.com/2006/11/27/hard-drive-disposal/
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by StickyC May 2, 2008 9:48 AM PDT
I'm not sure how this makes the data unreadable. The platters are still more or less intact and the data is still in order. A precise enough mechanism could still pass a reading element over the deformed surface and pull enough data to reconstruct things... Then again, if your data's worth that much, you're going to pay a lot more than $12k for the machine that purges it.
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by rjona1 May 2, 2008 10:08 AM PDT
a hard disk is rated to survive a 10g drop. . Unless you also have a nail , a hammer might not be effective Is is possible to lose the data by pouring water on it ?
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by CraigCalef May 2, 2008 10:11 AM PDT
This might be enough for your easily deterred adversaries but the data could still be read with techniques such as Electromagnetic Force Microscopy. The only way to be absolutely sure is complete molecular rearrangement. That is to say, melt the sucker. The adverterous and those short on time could use thermite. The more safety conscious could construct a simple furnace from a clay flower pot. The added benefit of this technique is you get a nice aluminum paper-weight out of the deal.
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by rjona1 May 2, 2008 10:12 AM PDT
a hard disk is pretty durable. It is rated to survive 300G shock. A Hammer alone might not be effective. If you have a nail, maybe .... Would pouring water be effective ?
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