On Mon, 2011-04-25 at 22:46 -0600, Steven Morrey wrote: > I can come up with a list of talking points that can be boiled down > and condensed into bites that a politician can understand.
Rapidly deleting many files is slow. While law enforcement has sounded an alarm because new technologies like SSD to make it possible to delete files faster, limitations inherent to SSD are motivating a move to copy-on-write filesystems. In other words, while it might appear that the files are deleted quickly, in fact there will often be multiple copies of the data still on the disk. (Mix TRIM support into the pot and this point may not be worth making.) Instead of deleting files, encryption is the best method to hide information. Alternatively, for small files a technology called stenography makes it possible to hide the very existence of the data. Combine all these factors and result is that rapid search and seizure provides very little benefit. If the data is unprotected, it will be hard to delete it fast enough to prevent discovery. If the data is protected, rapid search and seizure will probably be insufficient. Therefore, an orderly and non-violent search and seizure is more appropriate than a rapid and violent approach. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
