E3 Security Kit

NISPOM Explained

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Citing NISPOM or the DOD or the NSA is easy; it's also relatively easy to make good on a claim a secure delete software product is in accordance with these standards. Your data is not secured, but that's another matter, not entirely important from the vendor's point of view.

Anytime you see a reference to NISPOM or DOD or NSA - run for it. If that's how the vendor sells the product, the product is worthless. It's a cheap trick to use acronyms to bewilder and impress, and it's an even cheaper trick to engage in the slight of hand necessary to make good on a claim that a secure delete technology following any of these standards is really secure.

The DOD and NSA standards for secure delete - NISPOM - fall into several categories. The DOD and NSA are concerned with all sorts of data storage, not just computer hard drives. For example, they have standards for destruction of cathode ray tubes, for yes, grandma, real spooks with real cool spook gadgets can read off the inside of the tubes and uncover very sensitive information.

The DOD and NSA are also concerned about what remains on computer memory (RAM) chips. For secure delete for memory chips, they recommend overwriting everything with a random character, then with its one's complement, then with all ones. This is the 'standard' so often cited by the secure delete vendors.

It's not a standard for hard drives - it's a standard for memory chips. But they won't tell you that, not even in their 'fine print'.

When it comes to hard drives, a secure delete procedure such as the NISPOM DOD/NSA procedure for memory chips will leave you wide open and completely vulnerable.

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