Veterans suspends some medical research

By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 16, 6:46 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson has suspended activities at seven specialized research centers across the country after an unprotected computer hard drive disappeared from one of the facilities in Alabama last month.

September, 2006 - The National Institute of Standards and Technology released new National Guidelines for Electronic Media Destruction.  These guidelines establish for the first time the standard which governs electronic media destruction.  CD-Rom and DVD media must be ground to 250 micron particle sizes to comply with the new federal standard. 

Click on the following link for the official document.

NIST Special Publication 800-88

eWeek.com - Data Protection is a Consumer Issue
Best Buy Learns That Data Protection Can Be A Customer Issue 

Popular Mechanics shows how easily shredder output can be de-Humpty-Dumptied

Lake Superior Sounder - "The truth is: Disc data isn't really destroyed until the flakes start to fall"

National Institute of Standards and Technology - Guidelines for Media Sanitization

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 2000  

 May 3, 2006 IRON RIVER, WI -­­­ Digital Data Destruction (D3, Inc.) today announced that it was granted a new patent on its method and process to ‘split’ and destroy the digital data content on DVD media by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.