Once you’re in the business of destroying evidence, you’re already contemplating felony convictions on a number of counts… of course, the cops don’t investigate ANY computer crimes I can think of that aren’t felonies.
A floppy? That’s useful. I don’t think a single one of my computers even have a 3 1/2 disk drive anymore…
So, then the data is still there, but only you can access it. Can the police force you to open the access to your computer’s hard drive. I know that, with a warrant, they can physically seize your computer. Wouldn’t forcing you to open it for them be a fifth amendment issue?
I’ve heard of military drives that have a physical destruct trigger - the device jams something aginst the spinning platters and they shatter immediately.
FWIW, whenever I have a laptop drive that needs to be “secured” I just stomp on it and the glass platters are destroyed rather effectively. Much faster than running a drive scrubber app.
I don’t know much about the 5th amendment. Generally speaking your biggest problem when accused of a computer related crime (or even not) in Canada, the US, UK, etc. is being without your data. In the best of cases, your data is usually missing for months, but I’ve heard of up to 3 years. That’s if it’s returned at all, and not damaged or simply ‘lost’ while in police custody.
Probably not as big a concern for the “super computer hacker”, but a bit more so for you and me. 
Glass? Every desktop hard drive that I’ve gone into have metal platters. Are laptop hard drives different?
Might be just 3.5" or less that are glass - I don’t think I’ve ever seen metal platters in that size range.
It is a bit hard to tell what they’re made of until you try to destroy them, actually. Glass platters are flexible to a point, then <POW!>
Back when the China EP-3 thing was happening I worked with an ex P-3 driver. He said that the provided “destruct mechanism” was an axe (maybe he was understating it a bit…but then his job was flying, not dealing with the gizmos behind him). But he retired from the Navy in the late 80’s, maybe technolgy moved along a bit.
Thermite does seem to be the most reliable option for completely assured data erasure. 
I don’t know what you’re all talking about, there are industrial sized magnets readily available that will destroy a hard drive by getting within a foot or two of the drive. They can’t even be shipped by airplane because they screw with the avionics.
In the UK the Ministry of Defence destroy drives by dropping them in an acid bath.
If your drive were in a Caddy then you could get it out and into acid in a few seconds.
Well, last year of school for me was 1997/98. We left when the school was still using 386s and 486s. Besides, the destruction was of the floppy drive only, an act of vandalism rather than security.
But to the OP, if I was to see the cops arriving outside and quickly dumped the drive in acid or stomped on it before they got in, could I still br done for destruction of evidence?
Interesting. The ads at the bottom of this thread are:
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Solution: Operate your computer inside the University of Illinois at Chicago’s world-record setting 9.4-tesla experimental MRI machine.
Remember, of course, to keep the power off. But the moment someone busts down the door, flip the power on and watch their weapons fly.
Teeth too.
Per one title I’ve read, there is precedent that in at least one case, the judge ordered the defendant to provide the decryption key to the defendant’s encrypted file.
Apparently your possessions aren’t covered by the 5th amendment, and the situation appears to be analogous to opening a vault that the police feel contains crime evidence.
I don’t know that much about hard drives so I won’t be shocked at being corrected, but I thought drives were fairly airtight these days, to keep crud away from the heads since they are so close to the disk surface. If that’s the case, then it seems to me that it would take a few minutes for the acid to rot through the case and get to the platter.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate…
True, but I had my gaff searched by the police once, and they did not find my cellar.
Glass, ceramic or glass/ceramic composite platters are increasingly common in desktop as well as laptop drives these days. I expect they’ll all be one of these three main types of nonmetal platters within a few years.
I’ve been warned not to bring my iPod too close to the NMR (basically an MRI) on account that it might quench (that’s bad) the magnet. I think this might be a bit of an exageration, but definitely no magnets in the range of the instrument. For similar reasons, I’d say that you can’t just flip those magnets on and off like a light.
Actually, standard hard drives are not airtight - they have a small ventilation hole with a very fine filter on it. This is need to equalize air pressure inside the drive. There do exist specially manufactured drives for high altitude use that are sealed airtight.
If that’s all it has, then my comment stands. I still say it would take a few minutes for the acid to get in onto the disk.