The U.S. Navy has issued a solicitation asking for an appropriate service to turn 4,000 pounds of storage devices into ash.
The information stored on these devices is highly sensitive, as evidenced by the physical security requirements set forth in the solicitation. The incineration facility must have “at the minimum, secure entry, 24-hour armed guards and 24/7 camera surveillance with recordable date and time capabilities.”
Any interested destruction service has to be located within 10 driving hours of the White Sands Missile Range.
Check It Out: U.S. Navy Needs to Destroy 2 Tons of Hard Drives
I can come up with a pack of matches, a sharp stick, and an iPhone…but I’m not willing to relocate.
Good grief! Just take them to Naval Shipyard and melt them in a crucible
That’s dumb. There are a lot5 of facilities that can grind a drive or any metal object, to shavings. In St. Paul there was one that they had a belt that they fed drives, lawn furniture, cars, pots and pans, any metal into and what came out was shredded beyond all recognition or recovery. The idea of burning them “to ash” was obviously thought up by someone who does not know how hard drives work or how data is stored. Not only is this an over the top and overly expensive way of doing this, the environmental issues connected with “burning” actually melting down, they are metal after all, these drives is significant. Even SSDs, USB sticks, and soldered in drives could be better destroyed by shredding.