@qrs Did you know there are automated forensics tools for reconstructing the data contents of a hard disk from simply high-resolution images of the platters?

@slightlyflightyone @qrs @_@

@hirojin @qrs If you're concerned, you might want to look into acquiring a degausser. It significantly increases the amount of effort necessory to retrieve the data contents of a disk.

@slightlyflightyone @qrs fortunately, i don't have any hard drives any more, and all my SSDs are encrypted

@hirojin @qrs SSDs are actually much harder to destroy data on. They’re just so damn reliable for storage. :C

@slightlyflightyone
@qrs
How would that work? Magnetism cannot be recorded by camera sensors, and one would require high-resolution images in the Terapixel range.

@Sturmflut @qrs here is an image of stored data taken with a microscope.

@Sturmflut @qrs those white and black pixel things are a demonstration of how it's read and you are correct that this isn't an HDD platter, I misremembered how it worked.

This is a mask ROM. It's a process used for data analysis with integrated circuits.

@slightlyflightyone @qrs Yeah I was about to mention that's mask ROM. Current-generation hard drives store more than 2 Terabytes per platter, that's more than 8 trillion magnetized spots per platter side. No camera has that resolution

@Sturmflut @slightlyflightyone Magstripe cards can be optically read using iron filings, although they are encoded at a significantly lower bit density than drive platters. http://samy.pl/magspoof/

@qrs @slightlyflightyone ...and people don't tend to pour iron filings over their Magstripe cards before taking pictures of them, at least not here in Europe 😅

@Sturmflut @qrs I mean... forensics teams might?