General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums3 years ago, while in West Africa, I unknowingly walked over thousands of secret US documents...
I remember walking through Ghana's "Sodom and Gomorrah" slum while living in Legon and being informed afterwards that I was one lucky Obruni to have made it out unscathed. It was both an immediate and remote experience traveling through an actual slum. Immediate in it's presence, I'd never seen anything like that before. Remote in that it was so real, there was such an overload of everything, that it felt like I wasn't even there. I always wondered why there was so much reclaimed computer parts for sale at the Tro-Tro stations in and around Accra. But here is what I never knew until now...
Sodom and Gomorrah is the nickname for a slum in Accra called Agbogbloshie and it is the largest e-waste dump on the planet.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/feb/27/agbogbloshie-worlds-largest-e-waste-dump-in-pictures
The Basel Convention was signed in 1989 and took effect in 1992 and bans the transfer of mass e-waste from industrial nations to developing nations. The problem is one of the largest producers of e-waste on Earth, The United States, has yet to ratify it. This means that the US can ship thousands of tons of e-waste each year to whatever part of the world they find suitable as a dump. Much of this is dumped in the Accra suburb of Agbogbloshie.
I never knew I was walking through an American creation. But, now that I do know, I feel a little sick.
As it also turns out, the people who are responsible for the security of rather sensitive documents for the US government don't know know how to swipe hard drives very well...
http://boingboing.net/2009/06/25/illegal-e-waste-dump.html
The drive had belonged to a Fairfax, Virginia, employee who still works for the company and contained "hundreds and hundreds of documents about government contracts," said Peter Klein, an associate professor with the University of British Columbia, who led the investigation for the Public Broadcasting Service show Frontline. He would not disclose details of the documents, but he said that they were marked "competitive sensitive" and covered company contracts with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Transportation Security Agency.
The data was unencrypted, Klein said in an interview. The cost? US$40..."It was a wonderful, ironic twist," Klein said. "Here were these contracts being awarded based on their ability to keep the data safe."
Off-camera, sources in Ghana told the reporters that data thieves routinely scour these hard drives for sensitive information, Klein said.
So we award contracts to companies on the basis that they are good at keeping documents secure. Yet I myself, Gravitycollapse, literally walked through a field of secret documents dumped haphazardly in a slightly dried up lagoon slum of Accra without even knowing it.
Our US security state appears to be hemorrhaging "secure" information all over the globe. Which kind of brings into new light the absurdity of their attempt to surveil the American people because they clearly cannot be trusted with any sensitive information at all. And, in the end, what should we learn from this?
Instead of investing untold billions on civilian spying infrastructure, our government should take that money and invest in better governmental and contractor oversight.
Sheesh.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
cui bono
(19,926 posts)considered traitors.
This is fucking incredible, ridiculous, atrocious, unbelievable.... you get the idea. Ugh.
I'm MUCH more careful with my ewaste. And mine doesn't include any classified information.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)Crazy.
So the govt won't ratify it so private contractors can easily spill our classified docs all over the world. So why are we so concerned over Snowden? Are the Snowden critics going to jump all over this?
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Hekate
(90,189 posts)The road to Hell is paved with discarded hard drives, apparently.
At least hubby goes to great lengths to wipe out all information from our personal computers. A fellow professional takes it further and drills holes in his discards.
Honest to Gods I don't know what goes through the minds of so-called government security professionals.
Texasgal
(17,029 posts)As a matter of fact we have one coming up! I thought I was doing a good thing... Damn.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)Appropriate smilie here-->
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Not to mentions all the poisons, carcinogens, and plastics.
And an excellent example of why it's called "security theater".
onethatcares
(16,130 posts)wipe the drives? Serious question here from a non techi carpenter.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)There are various software products that claim to do the job, but they are not reliable (IMHO) against serious investigators with means. And make sure you get the disk inside and destroy it too.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)want to annihilate with no chance of retrieving even the slightest fragment of data, there are a bunch of ways.
For the low tech cheap option, you can open the drive, pull the platters out, stick them in a cheap disposable microwave outside your house, and fry them until the microwave quits working. Then smash the pieces.
The high tech option is a device called a "Degausser", that does basically the same thing, but doesn't become a flaming wreckage on your lawn after the first use.
Edited to add: That's simplified quite a bit, but gives you a general idea how it works.
onethatcares
(16,130 posts)take the drive out, get the platters out of it and run a bench grinder over the surfaces.
I was under the impression that the platters held a bit (albeit small) amount of platinum for recycling or has that
gone the way of clean oceans?
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)With some copper in the motor and neodymium magnets. I generally take old ones apart for the magnets, which are strong enough to pinch a blister on your finger if you get it between them.
There's a coating, but I think it takes an astronomical amount of them to make it efficient.
Edited to add: I actually use a cutting torch or a 6010 welding rod turned up to high heat to blast the platters into slag. I'm told just cutting them up isn't enough, but I'm not sure how much of that is truth and how much is bluster.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)But there are ways of electronically cleaning swiping a hard drive.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)malaise
(267,787 posts)unless it is the only about the corporations - ah well!