🚀 go-pugleaf

ksch...@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Kevin Leslie Schaper) wrote:

>I couldn't find any fridge magnets, and I'm not sure if a phone handset is more or less 
>magnetic, but I left the handset from my fancy at&t darth vader phone on a full disk for 5 
>minutes, and all the wav files I stuck on it still played ok.. I expected it to break it, 
>whaddya know.. 

_Some_ phones, mostly older ones, are "magnetic".  They use the old
electromagnet and clapper mechanism to make the ring you hear.  Newer
phones, though, tend to have electronic ringers.  I don't know for
sure, but I suspect that these phones use (nonmagnetic?) piezo
elements for the ringers as opposed to standard (usually magnetic)
diaphragm speakers.

The point is, some phones have a stronger magnetic field than others.
These phones are still around, and even still for sale.  If you can
find one, make a disk of stuff whose contents you're familiar with,
put it under the phone, and call that phone (or get someone else to
call it).  A few rings should be enough to scramble the data beyond
any hope of recovery.

= Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent