Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: jack2324 on October 01, 2012, 05:55 am

Title: What kind of computer should I get?
Post by: jack2324 on October 01, 2012, 05:55 am
My PC died, and I needed a Mac for work so I bought a refurbished MacBook Pro.  Unfortunately I'm now discovering a lot of darknet stuff doesn't work well on the OSX.  I've got a bit of cash laying around so I think it's time I buy a cheap PC to use purely for less-than-legal activities.  So what should I get?

I'm hoping less than $500 and very portable-- probably a netbook.  I will almost exclusively be running it off of a darknet bootable USB/external drive.  Any thoughts on what else I should be looking for?
Title: Re: What kind of computer should I get?
Post by: fuckthepolice101 on October 01, 2012, 07:29 am
get your netbook with a solid state drive.

if you ever have to do a zero wipe, it will wipe fast.
Title: Re: What kind of computer should I get?
Post by: fuckthepolice101 on October 01, 2012, 03:16 pm
I have heard similar doubts about deleting files from solid state drives and not having them delete properly.   


I have used active kill disk, 1 pass zero wipe with 100% verification turned on and I was unable to find any of the data using GetDataBack for NTFS as well as Steallr Pheonix. Neither could see any lost partitions, raw file signatures or file structure.


Maybe Guru is correct. This could be bad advice. The advice I gave was just from my personal experience in regards to the question about security and what hardware to use. Guru, you do have a point as there is still unknowns with solid state hard drives and data destruction.
Title: Re: What kind of computer should I get?
Post by: kmfkewm on October 02, 2012, 01:30 am
get your netbook with a solid state drive.

if you ever have to do a zero wipe, it will wipe fast.

I couldn't disagree more.  Wiping magnetic media is relatively well-understood, but how to securely wipe solid state media is still unclear.
Personally, I'd stay well clear.

Guru

SSD should be fine as long as you encrypt it first thing, but there is still the problem of filling it with randomness first. Worst case scenario, you don't fill it with randomness and the attacker can see how much data you have on your drive but they can not determine what it is. Best case scenario you fill it with randomness and then encrypt it, the attacker can not see how much data you have on the drive (assuming it actually lets you completely fill it with randomness) and can not tell what the data is, but you have already filled up the drive entirely once which will hurt the performance it has to offer.