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The Naval Surface Warfare Center at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico has—literally—tons of IT hardware and equipment used for classified programs that need to be destroyed by the most secure and irreversible means.
While White Sands Missile Range is an Army facility, NAVSEA researchers have a detachment there working on "land-based weapons system testing, directed energy weapons testing"—lasers—"and research rocket launch support," according to their webpage. Those researchers have on hand some 4,000 pounds of IT equipment, including magnetic, optical and solid-state storage devices with highly sensitive, classified data.
The center issued a solicitation for destruction services that specifically calls for all designated equipment to be burned "to 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."
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/02/navy-needs-2-tons-storage-devices-burned-ash/154629/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:10PM (15 children)
Why go to an outside vendor? Just put a pile of drives under the nozzle when launching a missile/rocket. The fire for incineration comes for free...
(Score: 1) by fennec on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:30PM (1 child)
Or use them for target practice ...
But that would probably be too cost effective.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:40PM
Probably, yeah. I expect someone has a brother-in-law already lined up ready to build a destruction facility that will cost a fortune and charge six fortunes per year to handle it. Simply blowing them up wouldn't make anyone any money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:42PM
Which is why the military can't do it
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:00PM (2 children)
One would seriously thing there was a simple solution like that to some people that work with lasers, missiles and rocket. I'm sure they have come chemist there that could cook up a good batch of thermite. Dig a suitable hole somewhere, toss drives in, apply termite. Hand out the smores and wait, ok they might become highly toxic smores but considering all the other horrible chemicals they probably deal with on day to day business one probably can't tell in the end.
The nozzle from a rocket should really be more then enough to turn a drive into sludge. I guess they don't want to use explosives tho since they can't be sure some little part of it is left intact and somehow the enemy spies might somehow piece that back together, no matter how far fetched that would be.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:53PM
Probably regs about the burning of trash that they can't violate
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by hemocyanin on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:52PM
The solution is simple -- seriously, even hard bricks and firewood can get a kiln to 2400 F, and with insulating firebricks/fiber and gas burners, you could easily achieve any metal's melting temp (aside from tungsten) in a modern furnace or kiln: https://www.onlinemetals.com/meltpt.cfm [onlinemetals.com]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:38PM (3 children)
There's a microSD card / mini USB key inside the mounds and mounds of equipment.
You blow up the pile / fire it with a rocket.
You now have no idea / accountability for whether that thing stayed in the pile and burned or just disappeared by blasting off somewhere.
Now you have to a) know that happened, b) see it go, c) find it and d) destroy it properly.
Guess where the Russians will be looking with a metal detector whenever they casually walk past.
Hell, a hard drive could easily launch itself intact and land in a recoverable state, let alone a little flash disk.
It's an incredibly stupid suggestion. This kind of stuff will be individually marked, recorded, checked off, tallied, witnessed, audited, etc. not just "lob it in with the rest of them". You are literally looking at someone counting, tagging and tracking each individual item, from shipment out, to entry into the facility, to the final destruction. With staff being searched in and out, any missing number being jumped upon like a lost classified storage device should be (i.e. Yes, you will bend over until we're satisfied we've found that missing item), and a complete audit trail with witnessed forms.
"Device 178548. Show me it. Check the model and serials. That tallies. Place that into furnace lot #234." Then again, as it arrived at the furnace. Then again as it goes from the furnace into the flames themselves.
Not just that, but you can be sure that there'll be a background check on everyone who even touches it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fritsd on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:58PM
Oh c'mon... I'm sure your president Trump will phone around to his friends, and one of them will have a competitive bid to make those hard drives and USB sticks disappear from the USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:27PM (1 child)
Furnace? Ask Germany for help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @01:15AM
Too soon.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:01PM (1 child)
That was my thought. Isn't this the place working on laser weaponry? That sounds ideal for the purpose. You might need to work a bit on containment, to protect against explosive delamination (of a non-rotating disk), but you'd need range security anyway.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:27PM
They were developing the directional cricket sonic weapon there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:41PM
Use this as an excuse to fire lots of rockets at the sun?
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Tuesday February 12 2019, @09:55PM
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:18AM
You greatly underestimate how hard it is to destroy something completely. Try reducing an old Nokia phone not even to ash, but to pieces smaller than 5mm. Use whatever you like and take as much time as you need.
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