Adam, A while ago I read about a company in Denmark that recovers data from damaged hard drives. They agreed to do a test for the NSA in wich the NSA sent them a drive that was full of documents, but they formatted it, filled the drive with zero's, formatted it again, filled the drive with one's, then format some more, held a strong magnet over it for an extensive period of time, and slammed four nails into it. The company could then retrieve 80% of the original data. So yes, I do believe that 30 is not exaturated.
Check out these links, maybe these data recovery company sites can convince you. http://www.ontrack.com http://www.drivesavers.com Regards Martijn. -----Original Message----- From: Dave Adams [mailto:dadams@;johncrowley.co.uk] Sent: maandag 28 oktober 2002 23:06 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Interesting One Greetings Folks, I had an interesting conversation today with someone from FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) They pretend not to be a snitch wing of the BSA. Anyway, to get to the point, the guy that came to see me said that their forensics guys could read data off a hard drive that had been written over up to thirty times. I find this very hard to believe and told him I thought he was mistaken but the guy was adamant that it could be done. My question is, does anyone have any views on this, or, can anyone point me to a source of information where I can get the facts on exactly how much data can be retrieved off a hard drive and under what conditions etc etc. Thanks Dave Adams This message (and any associated files) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential, subject to copyright or constitutes a trade secret. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, copying or distribution of this message, or files associated with this message, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Messages sent to and from John Crowley (Maidstone) Ltd may be monitored. Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. Therefore, we do not accept responsibility for any errors or omissions that are present in this message, or any attachment, that have arisen as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required, please request a hard-copy version. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of John Crowley (Maidstone) Ltd.