So, I thought I would bring this story to a conclusion. First of all, the data in question is a sort where even the mere possession of this data is a crime. The previous owner (died in 2005) of these disks may or may not have stored some of this data on these disks. I have no way of finding out nor do I want to be exposed to this data in any way.
I chose simple physical destruction. I removed the floppies from the protective sleeves. I tried putting one through a document shredder, but it just mangled the disk rather than cutting it into small pieces. So, I used a paper cutter to cut the disks into random pieces. They are then mixed into the trash, making reassembling them rather challenging. I doubt that someone could even reassemble a magnetic disk with such precision that the data would be readable anyway.
Just had a conversation that reminded me of this thread.
Some people that I work with who do brain imaging studies are cleaning out an old storeroom in another building, and they have a whole bunch of computers that need to be wiped before being disposed of. They’re pulling out all of the hard disks, and putting them in a box. So I asked what would happen to that box and the answer, “well, we have an MRI machine…”
That’d work, but, well… Remind me to not be anywhere nearby when they try that. Magnetic objects have a tendency to become bullets, in the vicinity of MRI machines.
Vice? Bolt cutter? He’s talking about floppy disks here. 5-1/4" and 8" floppies can be cut with any halfway decent pair of scissors. 3-1/2" floppies may require tinsnips to cut through the harder plastic shell, or you can just push the sliding metal piece out of the way and cut a slice out of the recording media with scissors.
Personally, I’d cut or break off the plastic shell and melt the magnetic media. if I was really concerned about the data. Nobody’s recovering any data from melted blobs of blobs of mylar.
Unfortunately it was a joke. It’s a 3 tesla magnet, so even a 50 pound box full of hard disks is going to move. I imagine it would work fantastically for 5.25 inch floppy disks, though.
The university does have a contract with a shredding service, so bulk data destruction is just a matter of finding which project will pay for it. That can be a problem when the data to be destroyed is from a project that was last active 12 years ago.
The Budget Committee. The true immovable object and simultaneously the true irresistible force of the Known Universe. Nothing can budge it; nothing can prevent being steam-rollered by it.
If the data on these floppy disks was what it seems like it probably was, couldn’t the remedy have been to take them to the police and say “I acquired these floppy disks as part of the estate of someone who died in 2005. I have come to learn they may have a certain kind of data on them. Here, please take them.” Would that get you in trouble? Maybe 2005 is too long ago. What if Uncle Roy died two weeks ago, I got his floppy disks last week, and earlier today I came to learn that there’s a good chance certain data is on them, so I’m at the station handing them over to you now.
And also, if you have very good reason to believe that some floppy disks have certain data on them (not put there by you), isn’t destroying them tantamount to destroying evidence? Maybe not if there’s an active investigation relating to that person, I guess, but it seems like destroying something you possess because you know it’s illegal to possess it might constitute a crime in and of itself. But in any case it seems like you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I am quite confident that there was no criminal investigation into the person to whom the disks originally belonged. Being deceased, he is well beyond the long arm of the law. I do not know that there is any unfortunate data on these disks; I only know that it is possible. Therefore, I am merely destroying disks that I happen to have with unknown data upon them that do not concern me in any way.
Certainly the deceased individual is beyond the reach of the law. But if said individual had illegal data, they got it from someone else, and might have passed it on to someone else, and those people might still be alive, and there might be evidence of said transfer on the disks.
@Drum_God - I don’t know where you live, and if you have already destroyed the disks this is now moot, but here in Canada there are mandatory reporting laws for cases of suspected child sexual abuse. Even though the deceased individual from whom you acquired the disks cannot be prosecuted, in your position I would want to consider whether turning the disks over to some legal authority might help the victims of whatever illegal activities are depicted. I would also agree with @Chronos that there may still be people involved in the illegal activities that could be identified and prosecuted.
If I ever found myself in a similar situation I would look to see what could be done to deliver the materials to some legal authority, but do it anonymously.
This thread has certainly taken an unexpected turn, originally I was going to mention the urban myth that spilling Coca-cola on a floppy disk was supposed to render it unreadable. But now any mention of spilling fluids has a definite ick factor.