No REAL ID, No problem. You just won’t be able to fly.

Another decent Real ID article I found.

If states do not comply to the Real ID act, or file paperwork for extension for compliance, then passengers will not be able to use there state issued ID for purposes of flying. Any state that continues to fight the Real ID act will find its citizens unable to fly with their state issues ID after May 1 of this year.

Think you have nothing to be concerned about? These states have actively passed legislation rejecting the Real ID act. These states include Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

I’m sure the airlines, which is a PRIVATE industry, btw, will be thrilled to hear that the government is going to cut into their customer base in the name of national security.

But remember guys, this is for your safety.

Link

Real ID is postponed for 5 years

But starting this May, states resisting the law will be penalized: Their driver’s licenses won’t be valid for air travel.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration hit the brakes Friday on a controversial law requiring Americans to carry tamper-proof driver’s licenses, delaying its final implementation by five years, until 2017.

A number of states have balked at the law, objecting to it largely over cost and privacy concerns. But under the administration’s new edict, states that continue to fight compliance with the law face a penalty: Their residents will be forbidden from using driver’s licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings as of May 11 of this year.

Congress passed the Real ID law in 2005 to address security flaws spotlighted by the 2001 terrorist attacks. But 17 states, including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, have passed legislation calling for its repeal or opposing its implementation.

“Come May 2008, [their] citizens . . . will feel the consequences” of the states’ resistance, Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Friday. To board a plane or enter a federal building, those residents will have to use a passport or other form of accepted identification, he said.

California is well on its way to compliance, Knocke said.

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Your Papers Please

Does Wiping a Hard Drive with Zeros Really Work?

 This might be pretty interesting as long as someone doesnt just steal the guys drive.

Q. What is this?

A. A challenge to confirm whether or not a professional data recovery firm or any individual(s) or organization(s) can recover data from a hard drive that has been overwritten with zeros once. I 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 I spoke to second level phone support. 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.”

The Great Zero Challenge