EP-3 Hainan Incident 2001
Why does 'secret' equipment not have destructor charges fitted these days?
In my day they were fitted to anything you didn't want 'them' to know about if your aircraft went down. They could be set off by the crew if they had to land in the 'wrong' place, or automatically after ejection.
In my day they were fitted to anything you didn't want 'them' to know about if your aircraft went down. They could be set off by the crew if they had to land in the 'wrong' place, or automatically after ejection.
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Compass call.
Depending when your day was there could be several reasons why charges wouldnt work.
Some kit is very hard to out beyond data recovery and simply, shooting, burning or exploding the kit won't do the job. There are of course still many very low tech ways to completely destroy hard drives etc.
Depending when your day was there could be several reasons why charges wouldnt work.
Some kit is very hard to out beyond data recovery and simply, shooting, burning or exploding the kit won't do the job. There are of course still many very low tech ways to completely destroy hard drives etc.
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: The Fletcher Memorial Home
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On the subject of shredders,back in the early 90's we regularly used to have to destroy reams of A3 fanfold paper that had computer code on it that was mostly classified. The usual method of doing this was to feed the first page into the shredder, then at it "self fed" the rest of the document you stood back and occasionally added some oil to the paper to keep the blades lubricated.
The whole process took hours, and as the code was classified it required the presence of the responsible officer who had to sign that it had indeed been destroyed. So after a whole day you had a signed off sheet of destroyed documents, and several backs of classified hamster bedding.
Then it came to light that the Ops building had just received a new type of shredder that could do the whole thing in a fraction of the time. So we booked a slot, threw all the documents into the back of a sherpa and me and the responsible officer went off to dispose.
We were warned that we needed to bring denims with us, so once we had arrived and were properly attired we were led into the broom cupboard that held a large metal box with a slot in the top covered by a swinging cover.
The internal workings of this shredder were not a set of teeth that tore the paper apart, but a large drum with a number of very wide and very sharp blades mounted on it. This spun at a great speed, and when it was up to speed you picked up a wadge of paper (we were advised to use no more than half an inch of A3 fanfold at a time), opened the swinging arm in the top, deposited the paper inside the machine and closed the swinging arm to keep the dust down.
Less than a minute later the noise died down and you could repeat the task with the next wadge of paper, end result was that we destroyed about a three foot high pile of computer code in less than an hour, including clean up.
Seems the new shredder reduced the paper to something akin to a fine powder (hence the denims) which was transported to a skip outside the building by a hose down which air (and the dust was blown. No more hamster bedding...
In a chat with the machine custodian after we had finished, it turned out this was the little brother of a bigger shredder of the same design that the manufacturers produced. While the purchasing process was underway the manufacturer had asked if we needed to shred anything other than paper and the response was "Yes, wet film and 1 inch magnetic tape". "Send us down some examples and we'll see how it handles it" stated the manufacturer, and soon after responded that both examples had been successfully destroyed. "Good job" said we, "well can we have the film canister and tape reel back please". At this point the manufacturer admitted that they had just lobbed the examples into the shredder, film canister and tape reel included and there were no ill effects as far as the machine was concerned.....
The whole process took hours, and as the code was classified it required the presence of the responsible officer who had to sign that it had indeed been destroyed. So after a whole day you had a signed off sheet of destroyed documents, and several backs of classified hamster bedding.
Then it came to light that the Ops building had just received a new type of shredder that could do the whole thing in a fraction of the time. So we booked a slot, threw all the documents into the back of a sherpa and me and the responsible officer went off to dispose.
We were warned that we needed to bring denims with us, so once we had arrived and were properly attired we were led into the broom cupboard that held a large metal box with a slot in the top covered by a swinging cover.
The internal workings of this shredder were not a set of teeth that tore the paper apart, but a large drum with a number of very wide and very sharp blades mounted on it. This spun at a great speed, and when it was up to speed you picked up a wadge of paper (we were advised to use no more than half an inch of A3 fanfold at a time), opened the swinging arm in the top, deposited the paper inside the machine and closed the swinging arm to keep the dust down.
Less than a minute later the noise died down and you could repeat the task with the next wadge of paper, end result was that we destroyed about a three foot high pile of computer code in less than an hour, including clean up.
Seems the new shredder reduced the paper to something akin to a fine powder (hence the denims) which was transported to a skip outside the building by a hose down which air (and the dust was blown. No more hamster bedding...
In a chat with the machine custodian after we had finished, it turned out this was the little brother of a bigger shredder of the same design that the manufacturers produced. While the purchasing process was underway the manufacturer had asked if we needed to shred anything other than paper and the response was "Yes, wet film and 1 inch magnetic tape". "Send us down some examples and we'll see how it handles it" stated the manufacturer, and soon after responded that both examples had been successfully destroyed. "Good job" said we, "well can we have the film canister and tape reel back please". At this point the manufacturer admitted that they had just lobbed the examples into the shredder, film canister and tape reel included and there were no ill effects as far as the machine was concerned.....
After the Iranian Revolution hundreds of students were employed in the task of sticking together the millions of strips of shredded documents at the American Embassy. They were quite successful.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Ogre, that was the volumetric disintegrator.
Remember the red file disposal slips? The job of witnessing officer usually went to a holding officer if available. After one session "where are the red disposal sheets?"
Remember the red file disposal slips? The job of witnessing officer usually went to a holding officer if available. After one session "where are the red disposal sheets?"
