[Noisebridge-discuss] DIY Scanning Tunneling Microscope

[Jacob Appelbaum]

On 08/18/2010 10:02 PM, travis+ml-noisebridge at subspacefield.org wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 09:50:32AM -0700, Jonathan Foote wrote:
>> Uses a cheap piezo transducer for the motion head. Doesn't look that hard!
>>
>> http://www.chemhacker.com/tags/scanning-tunneling-electron-microscope/
>>
>> Anyone think of a good application for atomic-resolution microscopy?
> 
> Magnetic force imaging of hard disks.
> Detecting electromigration in solid-state storage
> 
> Follow the link to my book from my homepage below, and then to "data
> remanence", for details.
> 
> I have a standing bet that I can with with Garfinkel if I can get proof
> you can get the data off an overwritten track of a HDD.
> 
> I've seen images of the track flanges on either side after an overwrite,
> so I know it can be done.
> 

I think this is a pretty doubtful possibility with modern disks.

MFM is often tossed around after Peter Gutmann's articles[0][1] but I'd
love to see a recent study on the topic. Hard drive technology is pretty
different today; the old stuff is pretty obviously vulnerable to the
Gutmann issues...

All the best,
Jake

[0] http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html
[1] http://www.cypherpunks.to/~peter/usenix01.pdf