• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

The Great Zero Challenge

Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
8,185 (1.36/day)
Processor Intel i9 9900K @5GHz w/ Corsair H150i Pro CPU AiO w/Corsair HD120 RBG fan
Motherboard Asus Z390 Maximus XI Code
Cooling 6x120mm Corsair HD120 RBG fans
Memory Corsair Vengeance RBG 2x8GB 3600MHz
Video Card(s) Asus RTX 3080Ti STRIX OC
Storage Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB , 970 EVO 1TB, Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD, 10TB Synology DS1621+ RAID5
Display(s) Corsair Xeneon 32" 32UHD144 4K
Case Corsair 570x RBG Tempered Glass
Audio Device(s) Onboard / Corsair Virtuoso XT Wireless RGB
Power Supply Corsair HX850w Platinum Series
Mouse Logitech G604s
Keyboard Corsair K70 Rapidfire
Software Windows 11 x64 Professional
Benchmark Scores Firestrike - 23520 Heaven - 3670
This is quiet interesting. Almost been going strong for a year now.

Q. What is this?

A. A challenge to confirm whether or not a professional, established data recovery firm can recover data from a hard drive that has been overwritten with zeros once. We used the 32 year-old Unix dd command using /dev/zero as input to overwrite the drive. Three data recover companies were contacted. All three are listed on this page. Two companies declined to review the drive immediately upon hearing the phrase 'dd', the third declined to review the drive after we spoke to second level phone support and they asked if the dd command had actually completed (good question). Here is their response... paraphrased from a phone conversation:

"According to our Unix team, there is less than a zero percent chance of data recovery after that dd command. The drive itself has been overwritten in a very fundamental manner. However, if for legal reasons you need to demonstrate that an effort is being made to recover some or all of the data, go ahead and send it in and we'll certainly make an effort, but again, from what you've told us, our engineers are certain that we cannot recover data from the drive. We'll email you a quote."
Q. Why are you doing this?

A. Because many people believe that in order to permanently delete data from a modern hard drive that multiple overwrites with random data, mechanical grinding, degaussing and incinerating must be used. They tell others this. Like chaos, it perpetuates itself until everyone believes it. Lots of good, usable hard drives are ruined in the process.
Q. What exactly is the challenge?

A. Your company can have a crack at the drive. You don't actually have to recover any more data to win the challenge, just tell us the name of one (1) of the two (2) files or the name of the one (1) folder that existed in this screen shot before the dd command was executed.

Here is the answer to the challenge.
Q. What kind of hard drive is it? How much did it cost? Is it new? Does it work? How did you format it? Why did you buy this drive?

A. Western Digital (WD800JB) 80GB hard drive. We paid roughly $60 USD for the drive. It is new. Yes, it works. We did a default initialization and NTFS format from within Windows XP. It was the smallest and least expensive hard drive we could purchase new. It's also a very plain, common drive. Data recovery firms should have a lot of experience dealing with this type of hard drive.
The Terms were updated on September 6th, 2008.

Q. May I enter the challenge?

A. Yes, if your company is an established, professional data recovery company (see below). Send a self-addressed, postage-paid box with packaging material to the address listed below and we will mail the drive to you.

THE CHALLENGE BEGAN ON JANUARY 15th 2008.
THE CHALLENGE ENDS ON JANUARY 15th 2009.

The challenger must be an established data recovery business located in the United States of America (We would need to see Articles of Incorporation, a current business license and one other form of business identification in order to determine that you are indeed a professional, for-profit, established data recovery business) Fair enough? If you object to these terms, then don't participate or suggest changes.

Challenges are accepted here :

16 Systems, LLC
P.O. Box 356
Blacksburg, VA 24063
Q. How do I win the challenge?

A. Your company must identify the name of one (1) of the two (2) files or the name of the one (1) folder that existed in this screen shot before the dd command was executed. You do not have to actually recover any more data from the drive, but you can if you are able to. You also must publicly disclose in a reproducible manner the method(s) used to win the challenge. Here is the answer to the challenge. It's a TIF screen shot that shows the original contents of the root folder of the drive before the dd command was executed. It's PGP symmetrically encrypted using GnuPG. The key will be released at the end of the challenge or when someone wins. Should someone win, they get to keep the drive. They also will receive $500.00 USD and the title "King (or Queen) of Data Recovery".
Q. Is this a scam?

A. No. The challenge is real. The hard drive is real. We hope to demonstrate that recovering data from a zeroed hard drive is impossible. Legitimate data recovery firms know this. They will not take the challenge. Lastly, it is noble and just to dispel myths, falsehoods and untruths.

http://16systems.com/zero/index.html
 
Joined
May 31, 2008
Messages
5,787 (1.00/day)
Location
Switzerland, Heart of Europe
System Name Fractality 1.0
Processor Intel Core i7-860 @ 3.6GHz
Motherboard EVGA P55 SLI
Cooling Prolimatech Megahalems and four Fractal Design 120mm fans, sleeved
Memory 16GB Kingston Hyper RAM
Video Card(s) PNY GeForce 580 XLR8
Storage 64GB and 180GB SSDs / 1TB and 2TB HDDs
Display(s) 24" Acer V243W
Case Fractal Design Define R2, sleeved all I/O cables
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply Corsair HX750W modular, sadly only stock sleeving
Software Win 7 64bit
Would be interesting if a company actually does succeed.
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
6,560 (1.08/day)
System Name Vintage
Processor i7 - 3770K @ Stock
Cooling Scythe Zipang II
Memory 2x4GB Crucial DDR3
Video Card(s) MSI GTX970
Storage M4 124GB SSD// WD Black 640GB// WD Black 1TB//Samsung F3 1.5TB
Display(s) Samsung SM223BW 21.6"
Case Generic
Power Supply Corsair HX 520W
Software Windows 7
I doubt any compayn would, unless it finds a way of reversing, or at least looking into the past 1s or 0s
 

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
Messages
26,259 (4.65/day)
Location
IA, USA
System Name BY-2021
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory 2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s) Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard Tesoro Excalibur
Software Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.
I think it depends on recovery method. If they use a clean room, remove the platters, and place them into another machine that can scan the magnetic fields of the entire hard drive surface to a degree greater than the original hard drive's head could, they could easily pull a whole lot of data from the drive. I suspect, however, that most recovery businesses just plug the drive in and do a simple copy so they can't get much if any data from it.
 
Joined
May 9, 2006
Messages
2,116 (0.32/day)
System Name Not named
Processor Intel 8700k @ 5Ghz
Motherboard Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Assassin II
Memory 16GB DDR4 Corsair LPX 3000mhz CL15
Video Card(s) Zotac 1080 Ti AMP EXTREME
Storage Samsung 960 PRO 512GB
Display(s) 24" Dell IPS 1920x1200
Case Fractal Design R5
Power Supply Corsair AX760 Watt Fully Modular
It's actually harder to pull information from a new drive as opposed to one thats been aged for a little while. The more advanced techniques that use data recovery check for magnetic fields on the disc bit by bit. As the drive ages the magnetic field weakens so even if it does a full "turn everything to 0's" format it may not be strong enough to fully erase the drive(everything will still be 0's but there would be trace magnetic hints left behind).

Really i couldn't tell you how successful it is, i just know that the chief security officer at the base i work at is really concerned about it so we grind every disc to dust.
 
Top