Protecting data? Physically hide it?!

[tingtao]

I did a search on the forum looking for other's input as to methods of keeping data private from prying eyes. I came across this thread:
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1693

Reading through it, I did not see any reference to actually hiding the hard drive; physically.
After all, it's the best protection, if the drive can not be found.
With all the methods mentioned, there is always a negative. Assuming a drive can be effectively hidden and protected from the elements, this would make the most sense. No need to worry about de-cryption, data forensics, or having to destroy your data, etc.

Of course there are numerous locations to hide items. My concern is protecting the removable drive from the damaging elements such as water and fire. The smallest firesafe I have come across was the typical Sentry, approximately 18" x 12" x 6". I feel this is obviously too large just for a hard drive and also a bit too big to effectively and convienently hide.

I am working on my own design and would like to hear any ideas for designs. Or for that matter, a hiding space that may, in itself, naturally provide water and fire protection.

As you know, the largest consumer of space in a firesafe is the cement walls. I am researching to see if there is a thinner, alternate material.
Also to keep in mind, media is more delicate and needs higher protection, hence, specific media safes.

I am not sure if this is too complicated of a task to take on, but of course, I won't know unless I try.
Therefore the reason for this post; maybe another can help with some insightful input.

Thanks all!

[Microtek]

If you are going to bury your hard drive to hide it from the police, why not just use a sealed plastic box ? If they have a search warrant a safe will just make it easier to spot and will announce that you are keeping something of import there....

[Rhadon]

If you put the HD into a safe you can just as well encrypt the data you want to hide. That way you can still use the drive without having to plug it in at first, and remember that if they do a raid they are likely to force you to open your safe or open it up themselves if you refuse to do so.

Hiding it outside the house can be done by anyone just like one would hide any piece of evidence when the HD is put into a sealed plastic box like Microtek said.

Moving to Water Cooler. Be more careful about choosing the right section in the future.

[Anath]

I keep all my 'sensitive' stuff on a 256Mb USB keyring. And I take it with me, obviously :)

You can get them in 1Gb flavours nowadays, That should be more than enough as long as you aren't saving movies on it. You can even boot from them on modern PC's, so keep a version of DOS and some dos file viewers on it, and you are set. No need to get complicated and waste space if you are only reading doc's and pdf's..

A pair of pliers or a stout boot will crush the EEPROM inside it, and I'd like to see forensics piece -that- back together. (I know it can be done, cost & difficulty would be outrageous though)

[Jacks Complete]

Anath,

I use similar, with a 50Mb encrypted partition. It can be hidden in plain sight, in a digital camera or PDA.

With the encryption, if they put it all back together again, you are going to be fairly safe even if you give up the password, since if they have any data loss whatsoever, it won't decrypt.

In the UK you can go to jail if you don't give up your password, but here, you clearly have, so you would be fine. And you could always lie!

[zeocrash]

yeah it's a bitch that you go to jail for not revealing your password, but i'm sure it's a lesser sentence than the one you would have got, besides you can always use the civil liberties people to help you in court

[ALENGOSVIG1]

How about compact flash? They're tiny and could be easily hidden anywhere. Hell you could swallow it if need be. :)

You can fit a gig on some of those tiny buggers.

[Sparky]

I've heard IBM microdrives are getting fairly large too.

As far as I can see hiding a hard drive is going to be pretty freaking hard if they know it exists and actually look for it. There is no getting around that it is a rather large piece of metal which can be found by a metal detector, so burying it is pretty unpractical. Plus you have to remember where it is and dig it up every time you want to use it which would be a real PITA. Also, even if you have a good case for it the drive could still probably get damaged fairly easily.

I like the little flash devices idea, they are so much easier to hide and destroy if you need to. Say for example you could have a little box that it sits in, and if someone tries to access it the wrong way it turns on and off an electromagnet a bunch of times.

[tingtao]

Well yes, I was refering to the hiding of the actual safe. I thought about flash memory, because of its size and ease of destruction, but of course, it is limited in memory. But now I am feeling that the two benefits outweigh the negative, well except.....
I simply have way too much data, apprx. 160GB! (Yes, a lot of video).
I dream of the day (very realistically in the near future) when a terabyte compact flash card is released for under $200. Wow that'll be great!

I will be still working on a tiny fire/water safe for the HD, seeing that large CF memory size is a bit distant in time. The HD to be hidden is one aside from the normal use drive in the computer so there will be no thought of even looking for it (unless they are there specifically to look for data, of course).

Again, I feel the effective hiding of data is the best route. By holding an encrypted drive in their hands, this in itself raises suspicion, whether warranted or not, especially by refusing to give a password.

CF is best for hiding. Hopefully, at the rate technology has been moving, a 1TB CF for $200 will be released in two years and then many of our data security problems will be solved. As it was stated, you can hide these things almost anywhere, now just imagine a 1TB MMC!!

By the way, if you snap an IC in half, is it truly destroyed? What about the remaining transistor gates holding the data in a non-volatile state? Could these be read? Computer foresincs is an amazing field as you've seen, so it wouldn't surprise me. But at the same time I would think that the architecture of the IC is one that incorporates the entire chip in order to be read, period. So they would literally have to 'stitch' the pieces back together...I don't know about that one!

[Tuatara]

EEPROM can be read with an electron microscope, I believe. Thats how some proprietry chips get their software reverse engineered for making cheap knock-offs. Though if you crush the chip to dust you'll never recover the data. It would be a 10,000 piece 3D puzzle, just 3mm square!

[Anath]

Unless they suspected the I.C to have de-activation codes for a hidden nuclear weapon in Washintgton D.C, I wouldn't worry about it. You are subscribed to an E&W forum, how hard can it be to crush a TQFP package I.C into powder? sheesh. Get a rock.

The whole point is to have it with you, so nobody can access it without your knowledge, and you have the power to destroy it before anyone can force it from you. I suppose I would keep a backup USBkey hidden in a 1" auger hole in a wooden fencepost on the side of a country road 100km's from where I live, or something equally creative. A GPS might be a good investment.

tingtao:
You have 160 Gb of highly personal and compromising information you need kept secure? or is it more like 100Mb of explosives ebooks and 159Gb of Nasty Porno ;) .Consider what you -really- need kept hidden, and what is just 'fluff' that the cops / feds / NSA wouldn't care about anyway.

[Wild Catmage]

An asbestos/concrete mix, or asbestos on its own would be a good choice of material for fireproofing.

It is fairly heatproof - my experiment involved taking a 2cm thick sheet of asbestos/concrete and leaving on top of an open wood fire (with one side of the sheet in contact with the flames) for 30 minutes. After this time, it was warm, but I could still rest my hand on it without burning myself.

However, if asbestos/concrete is rapidly cooled cooled down, e.g. immersed in water, after being in a fire, it will shatter quite violently (as I found out). Another problem with these materials is that they can be hard to get hold of, as certain types of asbestos may be banned where you live.

[Rhadon]

A member who is still in his 2-week-waiting period (Gotcha) asked me to post the following for him. That must stay an exception but since the discussion would probably be over when he's got the right to post I'll do it.

I don't see the purpose in planning on hiding your hard drive; doing so means
the data contained on it is inaccessible, and it assumes you'll have time to
remove and hide the drive. What happens in case of surprise (hint:
"they" plan for surprise, and are good at it)? Are you going to
gather all the info you think is relevent, remove the hard drive, and never use
that computer/new hard drive to access the same sorts of info? Forgive me if I
think that's a scenario that's unlikely enough that it'll bite you in the butt
when you thought you were being smart.
I'd suggest you look at a couple of other alternatives:
1) Encrypt your entire hard drive. I'm impressed with a product called Safe
Boot Solo, which uses AES encryption to encrypt the entire drive, and loads
itself before the operating system to decrypt on the fly. This only works with
Windows, but there are encrypted filesystems you can install under unix as well.

The advantage of encrypting all your data this way is that you can turn off your
computer and no-one can access the data without the key phrase. You're safe as
long as no-one has found a sneaky way to get your passphrase ahead of time
(insert anti-USAPATRIOT 4th Amendment clause here).
2) Encrypt storage on CD. If you just want to store something for future
reference, you can Zip it up, label the archive "chicken recipes," and
encrypt the entire thing with PGP (this is a feature that's included in the
commercial version of PGP, and used to be included in at least one version of
the free distribution -- see http://www.pgpi.com for details). Ideally, you'll set it up
so PGP encrypts the Zip archive and adds the executable bits to it to make it
self-decrypting on any Windows-based machine, to anyone that has the passphrase.
Once this has been completed, save a copy for yourself, and hand a copy to a
friend and mention something about financial records that you want stored
off-site in case your house burns down. As an aside, throwing your financial
data (also encrypted) on this same archive is a decent idea.
Non-Windows alternsatives include using GPG to encrypt the archive to a
pass-phrase or public key.
3) Use PGP-Disk or an alternative (there's one out there that was created in
Delphi; the author released his code a while back. Can't remember the name of
it, but I believe the non-commercial version is no longer supported). This
creates an encrypted file on disk that's of arbitrary size, and allows you to
use PGP to mount the file as another partition when you enter the passphrase.
Call it your S: drive for "secure" if you like. Simply unmount the
drive, and the data should be inaccessible. The advantage of going this route
is that you can back up the entire file to tape, and it's stored in an encrypted
form.
I don't mean to come across as a PGP-bigot, as there are applications out there
that claim to do the same operations that PGP/GPG do. It turns out crypto is
hard to do correctly, and I tend to trust applications that release the source
code and are popular enough that people have seriously examined the code for
flaws. PGP qualifies -- see the newsgroups sci.crypt and alt.security.pgp for
more details.
Oh, do a search for "passphrase FAQ" before choosing a passphrase.
Most are notoriously insecure, and you'd be surprised how many
"unguessable" passwords are found within minutes with typical
computing hardware and a good dictionary (the last I used was over 200 MB of
text, plus common permutations like replacing 'e' with '3', and appending
numbers to the ends of words, and combining words, and...)

[tingtao]

I have come across a nice utility, DriveCrypt (drivecrypt.com). What I like a lot is that it is a product that is from outside the U.S., therefore minimizing the backdooring by our fellow government. This company does not have to follow the requests of the U.S. Government like that of other encryption programs within the country.

Also to note, Sony is coming out with a new line of Microvault 'thumbdrives' one of which has a built in fingerprint authentication gate. I still don't know if it encrypts all the contents of the drive or if it's just an encrypted wall, where the data could be still accessed by manually reading the rest of the IC, and who knows if there is a backdoor, considering that it will be sold in the U.S.

But yes, how paranoid is too paranoid? After all, like stated, they're not looking for de-activation codes.

What I do like about storing a backup outside somewhere is that most places are protected against fire unlike in a house. That solves the safe problem. It's really just a moisture issue, nothing a water tight container and some dessicant can't solve.

If one was not frequently accessing their E&W data, then it would be fine to store it long term in a hidden place and retrieved when it was actually needed.

Thanks for the asbestos tip. I've been researching some fireproof textiles that are apprx. 4 times thinner than the concrete in current safes, but it looks like they are extremely expensive. The stuff used in the NASA shuttle's is out of the question. It will not be practical.
So my focus is back to drive encryption of hard drives and my dreams of increased flash memory.
My only concern, what if you encrypt all your data (and backup data) but for some strange reason, the encryption fails and you can't access the data anymore, what then? This is why I always wanted to have a copy somewhere, well hidden, that is in its raw form.
O.k, maybe I am overly paranoid, but hey, you never know.

So to realign this thread, what are you guys using for drive encryption programs? I prefer the type that allow you to 'travel,' meaning the program is not required to be installed on other machines in order to access your data. Also a safety that certain sectors of the drive can't be read in a lab, bypassing the password gate. All data should be encrypted by being in one folder or 'vault' but at the same time not take hours to encrypt and decrypt everytime you want to add to it. It should be 'on the fly'

Thanks again guys for your input.

[James]

I ran across an article on slashdot (http://slashdot.org) relating to a material you might find interesting called 'fire paste'. The article lacked any details.

[Anthony]

This is interesting:

Passphrase FAQ, 5.2:

"Several windows users have found their passphrase in the swap file...Windows programs that shell to DOS seem to directly write the passphrase into the swap file"

eek!:eek:

On-the-fly encryption/decryption is interesting. The big question though is how slow is it going to be? It would be good to have E&W data, temporary internet files, cookies on a seperate drive with on-the-fly. I think the performance hit would be too great to use it on your main drive.

[Jacks Complete]

Evening all.

I vaguely remember a thing I read regarding harddisk security, i think it was a JRCB thing.

Basic idea was, pack Thermite round your harddisk, and have a remote trigger that would frag your entire computer at the press of a button.

Obviously, this is very dumb.

However, thinking a bit, even dumb ideas can be salvaged. USB2.0 to IDE adapters now cost about £25, and a USB extension lead is £5. A makeshift firesafe in the garden, a load of Thermite, and two wires from your encrypted disk, plus two more for the igniter. Ziplock it carefully.

Front door caves in, all you do is press the "Cook" button, then pull the wires hard. Now they know something was on the end of those wires, but can they find it? It is buried in the garden, and is utterly toasted by hot iron, so even if they do, they can prove nothing. They can ask for your password, and lo! nothing to decrypt.

If you use a water and fire proof safe, there will be no heat or smoke, and your drive is waterproof. A 200Gb drive somewhere should be enough for even the biggest porn collection! :eek:

[tingtao]

Thank You James for that info.
Some pretty darn interesting stuff.
Here's the article:
http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=63

Cheap too!
Looks like my project plans have been rekindled.
I am trying to find some contact info for this guy so I can ask him a few questions.

Anthony, I have tried out DriveCrypt and the 'on the fly' encryption/decrption is impressively fast.
It seems to work too well! I am still working through it and reading the knowledge base, I'm pretty sure I read that the swap file gets erased or overwritten, I'm not sure. But this program seems pretty damn nice! You have a 'vault' folder and you simply mount and unmount it. The encyryption/decryption is as fast as simply moving files around. Of course, I've experimented on a smaller drive, but I don't think it will change too much with a larger drive. I was concerned that not all the files are being encyrpted but in the FAQ's they ensure that this 'vault' design is solid. As I said, I'm still playing around with it and learning. I've tried a few other's and they are a pain, and much less secure.
So, check out their FAQ, I really think you guys will be interested in this program:
http://www.securstar.com/faq_drivecrypt.php

Jack's Complete,
Sparks some ideas. Are you saying something to this effect?...For example have an external firewire drive (powered by the firewire), buried outside somewhere, not too far, and read and write content to and fro from your computer while it's buried? That's very interesting. I was thinking about them tracing the cable to the spot, but really, think about it, you can just have a mess load of cables behind your computer, like most people do and just mix it within. In addition to the detonation set off by you, also, a trip device if it is dug up while you're not around, in case they happen to find it. I really wonder how they would take it if they are digging and an erruption of thermite goes off! Would that be enough to take you in? By the way, I'm not to familar with thermite, I've set it off once before, but would it burn in an enclosed area that does not have any oxygen? That doesn't make sense to me, considering one of the legs of the fire triangle is oxygen. I know the rust is the oxidizer but still.
At any rate, I am planning on taking some measurements of my longest firewire cable to see what type of current I can draw. And also looking to write a very basic program to send the voltage down the cable upon the pressing of three certain buttons. Maybe there's some uses for a firewrire ignitor. I'll be experimenting. See what happens.

Now I'm all geared up!
I love this forum, how we can all share ideas and brainstorm!:D

[xyz]

Honestly, just use a seperate circuit for the ignitor. You could even use 240v mains power if you wanted to be sure (who cares if it blows fuses, your data has been destroyed).

Just have the switch for the ignitor mounted on the front of your computer, you could even have sperate switches in each room of the house in case you weren't at the computer when raided.

[Jacks Complete]

tingtao,

Yes, exactly right! I have a USB2.0 one, but I have seen firewire ones, too.

I was talking about putting the Thermite inside a waterproof fire safe, so that it wouldn't explode or anything, as little gas pressure would evolve (though I wouldn't like to say for sure!) and yes, Thermite has all three legs to the triangle right there. It will burn in a vacuum, and once lit, you would need a lot of water to put it out by removing the heat (you might get a steam explosion, too...

As for the wires, you just yank them out after you pressed the button! The rather small hole(s) left in the ground would likely be missed, and the search would require a metal detector, or perhaps a garden fork.

Does anyone know about Thermite gas generation? I haven't ever tried to contain it, but it burns, rather than deflagrates or exploding, no matter how fine or well mixed the powder, AFAIK.

xyz,

I would have multiple ignitors, if you are storing info that is that risky to hold! No single point failure, then! Would an RCD trip before the ignitor went off? Might be a second good reason against mains... as well as the risk of death! :eek:

[Bert]

Thermite theoreticaly doesn't generate gas. In real life, contaminants and particularly any water generate gas, and any air in the container will be expanding.

[tingtao]

Jack's Complete,
Thanks for clarifying.
I'm really liking that setup...for the day to day stuff.
But I still want to deeply hide away some data so that I don't have to risk destroying it.
At least if unwelcomed company arrived at your residence, you had to destroy your data, and you were actually left alone after the fact, you would still have a backup! This is my point.
A large percentage of the files you do not need on a daily basis. So deeply hidden somewhere without daily access is just fine. Again, just making sure this backup will not get damaged by the elements.
Well at any rate, it's good we have different options.

I have a question for ya'll. I didn't want to start a new thread just for this. I also read the FAQ's and searched the forum and came up empty. I also didn't want to bother the moderator's in case this is a stupid question and may have been asked many times before.
Seeing that I am a newbie, I have been keeping an eye on my post number. Well mysteriously at 6 posts, the number just froze. I've made more posts since then. I should be up to apprx. 12 or so. Do you think this is strange? Anyone have any idea what might be going on?
Thanks.

[0EZ0]

It is not strange at all. All posts made in The Water Cooler do not get added to your overall post count. In any case you should not be worrying about how much you post, but what you post. Quality is much more preferred than quantity on this forum.

[tingtao]

Oh I see. Thanks.
And yes, quality is more important than quantity. I try to keep that a golden rule with anything in my life.
Was just a simple curiosity quesiton.
Also, I wish I had more to contribute, but it is very difficult because almost everything I've practiced or thought of, has already been discussed, making it difficult to present anything new.
The more inventions and the more discussions already taken place, makes being an inventor with a new creation or idea, that much more rare.
I'm trying to pull something out of thin air but there's not that much thin air left.:D

[xyz]

Jack's Complete, an ignitor would have plenty of time to ignite before the RCD tripped, and because the ignitor is only making a circuit for a fraction of a second, there is usually not enough time for the RCD to trip and it will only trip once in every 8 times or so (by this, I mean that the ignitor will always work, and the power won't even go off most of the time). The molten iron from the thermite might close the circuit for longer and trip the RCD though, but once that has happened it doesn't matter.

Trust me, I used to use 240v mains power quite a lot back in the days when I was somewhat kewl.

[Jacks Complete]

So the question is, would the locking mech on the firesafe keep it shut against the gas pressure, considering it is nearly an inch thick, and has a waterproof seal... I suspect a loop of chain round it might work, so it can blow open a fraction, and, of course, if you pull the wires out, it will have a small hole until it closes up.

As to the original post, the whole point of the fire safe is to stop fire. If you bury it outside, under two inches of soil or more, then unless you do it in an area prone to fire, you wouldn't have a problem. After all, what's to burn? Even a fast moving forest fire through brush isn't going to get heat down more than a few inches. Put it under the patio, perhaps? You could use a standard ammo tin, as they are waterproof and fairly rustproof. Cost of about £5 in surplus shops. They are great for storing paintballs and motors, and ammo!

If you want massive overkill, you could use a bomb tin. I have no idea what they are actually called, but I got one when I was given the last load of ammo tins I've got. It is a very heavy steel container, with a multipoint lock on it. It looks about an inch thick, but must be hollow wall. It has a seal, and seems airtight. The guy said it was for storing explosive, but I don't actually know. Two big handles either side. If anyone knows what it is, let me know!

It is so much easier when you don't need access to the data in real time!