I'm back

I've been "away" for a bit. Even though the school semester has come to na end, I immediately took off for Floriday, for a much needed vacation. My wife and I enjoyed the sun, the surf, and the sights. Then I was back again for a week before I was off again. This time to Virginia to take SANS FOR408 - Windows Forensics.
A couple of quick notes. I still don't like Windows, and I'm still not a fan of Microsoft. However, I am amazed at all the information you can gather from a Windows box after someone has used it. It blew my mind to see all the little fragments of data and evidence of activity that gets strewn about a system during normal use. I can't wait to take a deeper dive into the world of digitial forensics. But for now, I have to study up for the GIAC certification that corresponds to the FOR408 class.
One thing that came up in class that got me thinking was the topic of drive wiping. As a class we came to the conlcusion that a single pass of all 0s is sufficient to render data on a drive unrecoverable. However, there are still people out there that insit Gutman idea is viable for data recovery, though no one has proven it, yet. It's possible someoen could test the idea with a number of hard drives, and some volunteers to put data on them, and then wipe them. Then someone could examine the drives' platters with magnetic field microscopy or maybe even a scanning electron microscope. When 757 labs recently posted on G+ that they got their hands on an SEM, it got me thinking. I suggested that they give it a shot, themselves, but if I manage to get my hands on the gear to do either contactless atomic force, scanning election, or magnetic field microscopy, I am definitely going to try to put the debate to rest once and for all.
Anyway, now that I'm back, and I have a little time before school starts up again, I'm going to see if I can a small project or two completed. I also have to get back to figuring out what's going on with our local robot war ... :)