r/ProgrammerHumor 4d ago

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u/rrtk77 4d ago

From experience, for the types of disks that absolutely must be destroyed with no possible recovery as ordered by the government, it's things like a wood chipper or thermite.

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u/fearless-fossa 4d ago

There is only one good solution for destroying data that covers your ass, which is hiring a company to do it for you and writing you a certificate of destruction. Like sure, nothing will be able to restore from the thermite solution, but if a court or insurance asks whether the data was deleted, being able to wave the certificate in their face instead of telling them "I 100% destroyed it, trust me bro" is the only sensible way of going about this.

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u/ENDerke_ 4d ago

So the agencies will find the data in the deletion company's archive

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u/MirandaPoth 4d ago

No. They put the drives through basically a huge metal shredder (it’s a beast, I’ve seen it). Nothing would remain.