The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Rastus on April 21, 2017, 08:32:16 PM
-
My IT guy came running over yesterday saying there was a good deal on eBay on used laptops...$300. It is a used General Dynamics toughbook with an i7 2.2 ghz processor, 8 gb ram and a 120 mb solid state drive. I ordered one and got it delivered next day. It boots up fast on MS Windows 7 something and runs well.
It also has a touch screen and other bennies, see below:
The GD8200 meets U.S. military MIL-STD 810G, which includes punishing drops, shock, vibration, extreme heat and cold and an Ingress Protection (IP) 65 rating, sealing the unit against dust and water. It is also certified to operate in helicopters, withstand electromagnetic emissions and has passed rigorous crash testing for in-vehicle occupant safety.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toughbook-i7-2-2GHz-General-Dynamics-Itronix-GD8200-8GB-120GB-SSD-Dock-Station-/112373356577?hash=item1a29f95821:g:zasAAOSwo4pYT0Px (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toughbook-i7-2-2GHz-General-Dynamics-Itronix-GD8200-8GB-120GB-SSD-Dock-Station-/112373356577?hash=item1a29f95821:g:zasAAOSwo4pYT0Px)
-
I skimmed through a review on it and it said that it weighs about 8 pounds. That's the price you have to pay for ruggedness. I never had a laptop but it sounds good to me.
-
But wait. Brand new ones with tons more features are only $319. OfficeMax/Depot.
15.6" HD display
6th Generation Intel Core i3 processor
Equipped with 8GB of memory
Powerful 1TB hard drive
Wireless-AC (802.11ac)
Plays and burns DVDs and CDs.
Features a micro SD memory card reader for quick and convenient file transfers.
Features a USB 3.0 port f
Integrated webcam and microphone
Bluetooth® 4.1 wireless technology.
HDMI™ port le
-
But not MIL-STD 810G. In addition to touchscreen you can read in daylight has wwan/lan in a toughbook frame. Most important for me is resistance to electromagnetic emission... intrinsic value.
-
You'll be the only one of us with an operational laptop once the nukes start dropping. I hope there's still a solid infrastructure and people left to communicate with.
-
Naw...not the only one. And besides...that's why DARPA created the internet. To insure coms after a nuke war. Infrastructure will be what you bring to the other side...if there is an other side.
-
My IT guy came running over yesterday saying there was a good deal on eBay on used laptops...$300. It is a used General Dynamics toughbook with an i7 2.2 ghz processor, 8 gb ram and a 120 mb solid state drive.
I'm surprised that companies like General Dynamics would allow their computers to be sold on the used market. From what I've learned, it is all but impossible to completely erase a hard drive. Police departments have forensic computer people that can extract most anything off a hard drive. While I'm sure these are computers that don't have "company secrets" on them, they still might have information the company doesn't want to get out.
It's the same with copying machines. I saw a show once that showed how most every office copier has a computer module in it that records virtually everything that has ever been copied on it. Legal documents, bank statements, name it, and they can recover it. It's a bit scary. While I'll admit to not being that computer literate, I would NEVER sell any of my old desktops or copiers I've accumulated over the years. They are all stacked up in my closet.
One of these day's I'll take them out into the desert with a 12 gauge and a couple of garbage bags, and have at them. A show I saw on the Discovery Channel had a police computer forensic guy on. And he said the only way to completely erase a hard drive is to place it on the sidewalk, and smash it to pieces with a hammer. I think 12 gauge slugs would make an excellent substitute for a hammer. And at the same time take less effort, and be a lot more fun.
-
I worked for GD for ten years. My bro has since 1981. I know for a fact that they only last year allowed smart phones at Electric Boat because I was badged as a contractor last year in CT.
I suspect those laptops are stolen or the hard drives were removed by GD.
-
If you reformat your hard drive it deletes everything on your computer but it's still possible for someone who really knows what they're doing to recover some of it using special programs that most people don't have. Where there's a will there's a way, but to most people it's gone for good. The only way to be sure the data can't be recovered is to break the hard disk into pieces.
-
I shot up my last one. I've burned one too.
Same thing for printers if they have any memory.
-
Here are all my old, deactivated disc drives. Yes with a very special rig, and after you polish out the burrs and scratches, you might be able to recover some blocks of data. But I doubt I have anything worth spending that amount of time and effort on.
(https://photos.smugmug.com/General/i-g6ps8xP/0/a947adc1/X2/IMG_6629-X2.jpg)
-
I don't know about the discs in disc drives but CDs and DVDs placed in the microwave oven and nuked for a few seconds are FUBAR. It looks like they were struck by lightning. If you shut it off right after it starts zapping the disc it doesn't hurt the microwave. I've had mine for about 31 years and it still works after destroying some DVDs.
Also degaussing is supposed to erase any type of magnetic disc.
-
Couple of things:
I bought a 3-year old laptop with dual i7 processors (i3 is way slower) with 8gig memory and 1TB disc AND touch screen for $240 from a local pawn shop. Yeah, it ain't hardened but then neither am I! I also upgraded the RAM to 16G and installed windows 10 on it (like I had a choice! >:( ). I'm typing this message on that very computer. Check your local pawnshops.
2. After 30+ years in IT I can tell you the ONLY way to destroy a hard drive (and yes, copiers have hard drives in them) so no one can recover the data is to shred them. There are services that do this, and the protocol is very serious - matching serial numbers numerous times through the process with client sign-offs at each step of the process, etc. The process starts with the drive drilled with a 1/2" drill bit through the platters, and then off to the shredder.
You can degauss a drive, store a large magnet next to it (or on it), format it multiple times, and the data can still be retrieved. It will be progressively harder to do, but it all depends on how badly you want to get that data.
If GD sold the laptops, my money would be on the drives having been replaced with the originals shredded.
-
I just read the eBay add, and NO, do not go for these. Here's why:
1. They are FIVE years old, way too old for anything other than stuffing into a Faraday box "just in case"
2. They use Sold State Drives (SSDs) and did I mention they are FIVE years old? SSDs from back them were awful, with high failure rates if written to frequently. On my desktop, I have a 500G SSD and I still have the windows swap file on my spinning platter hard drive, not the SSD. And that's with a modern SSD, not a FIVE year old one.
3. The SSDs are only 120G - you can barely get windows on that plus maybe MS Office and then they're full.
4. Windows 7 was a decent OS, but it's no longer supported IIRC, so security updates ain't happening. Any remaining zero-day exploits are up to you and your anti-virus to contain - forever.
5. Don't know if it is at all upgradable - more memory, different (and bigger) hard drive, Windows 10 compatible, etc.
-
Windows 7 is still supported. I have it and there are updates on average once a week. One in March was to fix a vulnerability that allowed the ransomware that just hit 150 countries. I also have Malwarebytes which almost guarantees I won't get any ransomware if the Widows updates didn't prevent it. I don't fully trust any OS.
-
Question about these laptops:
Will they get special scrutiny by TSA at airport checkin? With all the concern about laptop explosives will this particular type of laptop be more suspect?
-
I purchased one and I love it. It's impact resistant, touch screen, visible in limited sunlight without a lot of trouble. 120 GB isn't a big deal to me....it has plenty of room left for things I want to store plus I have a couple of 128 GB thumb drives ($25-$30) to store files on.
My purchase was because if there is an EMP I'll still have something to look at old pictures on. I keep pics and important scans and pdf's on thumb drives inside a faraday cage so....so long as I can get a computer I can access what is on the thumb drives. With old tubby in North Korea one never knows.....
-
There is software that will "scrub" a hard disk multiple times with different patterns of data that will effectively erase a hard disk. Bleach bit is the first that comes to mind. By replacing the pattern of data multiple times (can be up to hundreds) the "original" data is not recoverable from that disk. Bleach Bit is what Hillary used to delete her emails and as I understand it they have had to go to backup drives, cloud storage, and the recipients' email clients to recover what they have. Any magnetic data media can be overwritten to the point that original data on it cannot be recovered. IMHO