_________ SWAT MAGAZINE ISSUE THIRTY TWO AUGUST 2000 __________ / \___________________________________________/ \ / Takeing out data - MY WAY \ / by -=The Firestarter=- \ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 02:55 16/08/2000 Well this month i have been getting up to numerous evil things that have resulted in me getting my hands on "sensitive data", well ok not sensative as such, just shit that i don't want other ppl to get there hands on. So after seaching the net for some k-rad wiping utils and concluding that PGP is the BEST out there but isn't fully suited to my needs i came up with a not-so-high-tech way to take out all of my data (well the sensitive stuff). Basically my little method consists of simple batch files and DOS utilities, true, its not a sure fire method to cover your tracks, but its better than nothing. Well first off lets see how you can store your data, well my personal favorite is PGPDisk. Ok PGP disk is good, but lets face it, if you wanna nuke data then keeping it (encrypted or otherwise) is kinda pointless. So how shall we kill that oh-so-precious data? simple, Batch files and simple utilities. Batch files are nice, not secure and if you have the time to execute one (i.e clicking on it) then u would have time to use some other more secure method, but this is purely designed for speed and 99% of the time all it does is corrupt data. Ok you will need: Batch programming skills equivalent to that of an ant A simple DOS wiping utility ( i recommend Nowhere Utilities 2.0 - search for it) The ability to press 3 keys at once :o) Ok i'm assuming that you are killing a PGP disk, note that this can take time, infact most of the time other wipe methods are quicker since you will most likely not have much time at all to do stuff. E.G with this method on a PGP disk volume of 500mb it took over 5 minutes (actually i stopped it after 5 minutes because i was board) So whats my point? you aren't going to have very long at all to wipe stuff, and if you have five minutes ou could probably Fdisk your system and commence a Linux distro installation :op Ok what you need to do is copy wipe.exe from nowhere utils to your c:\windows or c:\winnt\system32 directory. Now make a batch file in the same dir as your PGP volume. The batch file should have the simple line: wipe pgpdsk.pgd (replace pgpdsk.pgd with the name of your pgp disk volume). Now create a shortcut on the desktop to the batch file, set it up with a shortcut key like "Ctrl-Alt-K" also set up an unmount hotkey for PGP Disk, this allows u to unmount the drive and begin a wipe out in a manner of seconds. If the wipe out runs for a few seconds and is stopped the PGP disk becomes unuseable in the sense that it needs formatting again before it can be used (it registers as unformatted). Not 100% safe, but better than nothing. Ok, so what about if you don't have PGP disk? fast encryption is a good bet, the cipher.com program that comes with Nowhere utilities is crap for this because it can't recuse directories, so if all your files are in one directory then its fine, just run "cipher 0.454658746454561 *.*" or something like that before u wipe them. So your batch file would read: cipher 0.56465456161 *.* wipe *.* wipe batch.bat and have the usual shortcut and hotkeys on the desktop. If you don't have PGP disk and you have to recurse directories, then that can prove to be a little more difficult. For this we will use RAR for DOS (www.rarsoft.com) and PKzip (www.pkware.com) Dump rar.exe and pkzip.exe into your windows directory and use this batch file (or something similar): deltree /y c:\Dir\ rar a -r -m0 c:\b00m.rar c:\progra~1\*.exe copy c:\b00m.rar c:\g00n.rar pkzip fuck.zip c:\*.rar cd \ cipher 0.121464546 fuck.zip del g00n.rar del b00m.rar wipe fuck.zip Ok what does this do? simple, wipe out the directory with the files using Deltree (those with windows 2k and possible WinNT will need to get there hands on deltree.exe - my ver of win2k doesn't have it, so i dunno about the rest of you). Then it compresses all of the exe files in your program files directory (or any files u want), these are then copied in your root directory as g00n.rar (as well as b00m.rar), they are then zipped down, ciphered, then deleted. Ok so it take fucking ages, but it overwrites a lot of the hard drive. Wheter or not it will be of much use is another matter, but its worth a try. You *could* try: deltree /y c:\ defrag c: that *might* work as long as the files where not at the end of the disk. But all in all, if you have the chance, PGP Wipe the files then wipe free space on your disk (ATLEAST 3 times), if your really paranoid, format, remove, burn, beat with a sledge hammer, submerge in boiling chip fat for an hour then finally microwave the product until the microwave expodes. Dispose of the remaining bits in hydrochloric acid. 04:07 16/08/2000