> -----Original Message----- > > Ed > I have worked at several top secret installations in the past > and I was told that they take the old DASD and drop them in a > acid bath then cut them up. > Never saw it happened so not totally sure it was done or not. > George Fogg >
Physical destruction of DASD such as that described by George is probably the "purest" form of data destruction. However, if my understanding of the various compliance requirements is correct, it would need to be witnessed by someone from the owning organisation in order to provide formal verification. The downside of physically destroying the media as against using a certified erase solution to remove the contents is that the obsolete storage media can never be acquired on a lease-basis given that the box is not going to be able to be returned intact when the lease would have expired. For storage subsystems that have been purchased, there's no way that any residual value that the box might contain can be realised. Using a secure storage santisation or overwriting methodology, once the data has been removed, it's then possible to put out requests to second hand equipment dealers to submit an offer to acquire the box and remove it and at least get some dollars back. Stephen Mednick Computer Supervisory Services Sydney, Australia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
