Reply to post: Hard drives vs SD cards

Diss drive: Seagate and IBM bring blockchain sledgehammer to compliance nuts

David Roberts

Hard drives vs SD cards

I understand there is a trade in SD cards (and USB memory sticks) where the real memory is far less than the badge. I also understand that the software in the controller is written to falsely report the capacity.

Unless the HDD has the controller software modified to falsely report the capacity, I'm not sure what this utility gives you. If you buy a drive, plug it in and the OS reports that it is 2 Gig not 4 Gig (for example) then you know that you have been duped without asking about a blockchain entry. Your recourse is surely the same if it just shows the wrong capacity when mounted, or when mounted and a blockchain query issued.

The SMART data may also give some clues, unless you can reset this to look like a new drive.

If, of course, all the controller data can be rewritten (as with SD cards) to make the HDD present as a different drive when mounted then having a cryptographic verification of the drive ID would make sense. As long as the blockchain ID couldn't be cloned. If someone is deep in the firmware and rewriting the controller software then presumably anything is possible. Including virus infections (IIRC you can mess around with the controller software on USB sticks to infect devices. Not the same interface, though.).

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