RE: Destructive Batches 04-17-2012, 08:43 PM
#12
If you just read the last paragraph of my post you would get answer to your question.
You can't corrupt it permanently, because it is often restored using an installation media or can be just reinstalled again. What you can corrupt is user data, assuming he doesn't have any backups in the same system, otherwise he can restore these data as well, so corruption won't be permanent.
Technically, you might try exploit some hardware weaknesses in order to corrupt it, for example by trying to change voltage of the processor core to make it overheat, but today, many processors would just shut down, once they reach certain temperature, in order to protect themselves, it is a hardware fail-safe over which software doesn't have any control.
Maybe you could corrupt an SSD or Flash drive by constantly writing new data to it, because they have a limited amount of rewrites, because the memory cells wear off (writing basically forces a bunch of electrons from one layer to another trough an non-conductive layer using high voltage (relatively high), so it's a bit "rough" and it gets damaged a little by every change), however the hardware itself contains some mechanisms to reduce this damage called wear-leveling, so it could also take a while to destroy it that way.
One thing that I can think of that could be really annoying (but still being restorable) is flashing BIOS with gibberish data, so the computer won't boot. However, this can be restored by either re-flashing the BIOS (either using safety mechanisms such as Dual BIOS or a special device) or changing the motherboard.
Simply put, hardware nowadays has a lot of fail-safe mechanisms to prevent damage, over which software has no control, so it's not generally possible to destroy something permanently by software, not to mention that there's a little reason to do so. Today, malicious software does usually something that makes it useful for its creators, which usually involves earning money.
Not to mention, user data usually have way more value than the OS and hardware itself.
You can't corrupt it permanently, because it is often restored using an installation media or can be just reinstalled again. What you can corrupt is user data, assuming he doesn't have any backups in the same system, otherwise he can restore these data as well, so corruption won't be permanent.
Technically, you might try exploit some hardware weaknesses in order to corrupt it, for example by trying to change voltage of the processor core to make it overheat, but today, many processors would just shut down, once they reach certain temperature, in order to protect themselves, it is a hardware fail-safe over which software doesn't have any control.
Maybe you could corrupt an SSD or Flash drive by constantly writing new data to it, because they have a limited amount of rewrites, because the memory cells wear off (writing basically forces a bunch of electrons from one layer to another trough an non-conductive layer using high voltage (relatively high), so it's a bit "rough" and it gets damaged a little by every change), however the hardware itself contains some mechanisms to reduce this damage called wear-leveling, so it could also take a while to destroy it that way.
One thing that I can think of that could be really annoying (but still being restorable) is flashing BIOS with gibberish data, so the computer won't boot. However, this can be restored by either re-flashing the BIOS (either using safety mechanisms such as Dual BIOS or a special device) or changing the motherboard.
Simply put, hardware nowadays has a lot of fail-safe mechanisms to prevent damage, over which software has no control, so it's not generally possible to destroy something permanently by software, not to mention that there's a little reason to do so. Today, malicious software does usually something that makes it useful for its creators, which usually involves earning money.
Not to mention, user data usually have way more value than the OS and hardware itself.
I love creativity and creating, I love science and rational thought, I am an open atheist and avid self-learner.
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