[LINK] Self-erasing flash drives destroy court evidence

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Steven Clark
> Sent: Thursday, 3 March 2011 10:35 AM
> To: link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Self-erasing flash drives destroy court evidence
> 
> 
> On 03/03/11 09:45, Roger Clarke wrote:
> > At 9:55 +1100 3/3/11, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> >> Self-erasing flash drives destroy court evidence
> >> 'Golden age' of forensics coming to close
> >> By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
> >> Posted in ID, 1st March 2011
> >> The Register 
> >> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/01/self_d>
estructing_flash_drives
> >> /
> > ...
> >> Data stored [in solid-state memory] is [able to be] permanently 
> >> erased ...
> > So, normal service is resumed.
> >
> > Recoverability of nominally deleted data was an incidental 
> feature of
> > magnetic recording media, different from rocks, vellum 
> (remember the 
> > palimpsest!) and paper.
> >
> > The feature will fade away as magnetic media fades away.
> >
> > To co-opt one of the great advertising lines:
> >
> >         'What part of 'delete' don't you understand?'.
> i predict that this will accelerate demands from certain 
> interests for 'data retention' laws.
> 
> -- 
> Steven R Clark

Actually Steven, I also have a prediction. I predict that suddenly
Governments will be mandating huge numbers of these drives be installed
throughout all Government Archives.
Further I predict that current work will be on flash drives and only
moved to magnetic media ONCE the incumbents are re-elected for an
additional term.

E.g.:

Quote/ [From: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/52615]

Australian Government response to the report into libraries in the
online environment by the Senate Environment, Communications,
Information Technology and the Arts References Committee was selected
for preservation by the National Library of Australia. This title is not
scheduled for re-archiving. The publisher's site may provide more
current information.
Archived 08 Sep 2005 00:00
/Quote

Quote/ PANDORA, is an acronym that encapsulates our mission: Preserving
and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia. /Pandora

BTW, has anyone investigated the effect of solar flares on NAND memory ?

I think we need to urgently start a campaign that all of Government
needs to be backed up on Traditional hard disks until at least 2050. (By
which time on demand Organic [crystal based - think salt] holographic
memory modules will be commonplace.)

TomK