From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 09:19:50 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: BAD ADVICE WARNING from Kent: Access to Storage and Communication
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.970610145359.9093F-100000@beast.brainlink.com>
Message-ID: <95X48D67w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com> writes:
> Passphrases can be memorized.  4mm DAT tapes hold several gigs and are
> tiny.  Ever see one?  Fits in your pocket.  It's smaller that an audio
> cassette. Fairly easy to guard, but, if your data is backed up in
> encrypted form (cyphertext), and not clear text, you don't even need to
> bother protecting the tape. (That is unless your backup software uses a
> weak cypher as most tend to do.)  [FYI: Your knowledge of tape
> technologies is severly lacking. 4mm tapes hold 2-4Gb.  Exabytes 5Gb-10Gb.
> Mamouth Exabytes (same size as 8mm camcorder video tapes, smaller than
> audio cassettes) hold as much as 40Gb in a very small form factor.]

I'm actually thinking of getting a pair of 4mm tape drives to replace
my existing backup system (very old drives that use DC 600As; only
.25GB / drive, pretty slow, no NT drivers; time to upgrade)

I wonder: if the data is well-encrypted, wouldn't it make the compression
pretty ineffective?

Also: can somebody recommend good, fast 4MM drives that go inside a PC and
work off a SCSI controller, and are supported by Windows NT and 95 with no
special drivers? (I don't care about OS/2 and Linux support)

[I guess I'll burn the old media or something. :-) I still have about
3 cubic feet of 5.25" floppies that I don't know how to discard]

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps