Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!truesdel
From: truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: new twist to airport security and hard drives
Message-ID: <2586878A.26444@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 89 17:31:54 GMT
References: <7597@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Lines: 41

carter@portia.Stanford.EDU (Thomas J. Carter) writes:

>Well, does anyone have any experience with an internal hard drive?

I assume you are talking about an internal drive mechanism REMOVED
from the computer, being transported all by itself...

>I don't remember this being discussed but I appologize if I missed it
>(I start to 'k' things after a while myself).  I can't just plug it 
>in the wall 'cause that's not how it works.  When you figure that it
>looks even more like a bomb (complete with detonation wires (i.e. 
>power/SCSI cable)) than an external drive I think I may be better 
>off not even trying but I thought I'd ask first.  Thanks in advance.

Suggestion 1: Pad it in a T-shirt, pack it near the middle of your 
suitcase/pack/what-have-you, and just check it with everything else.

Suggestion 2: Carry-on. Just put it on the belt to be x-rayed with 
everything else.

There has been a lot of fear expressed about loosing data to airport
x-ray machines. I must have put hard disks, RAM disks, floppies, tape
cartridges, everything under the Sun (er, I mean Mac) through the
normal security x-ray conveyors dozens of times and never missed a
byte. I did the "hand inspection" thing a couple of times and it was
such a pain to set everything up and turn it on! I just x-ray
everything now and simply don't experience problems. In fact, I've
never heard ONE story, even second hand, about someone loosing data to
airport x-rays. I think it is just a concept that concerned people mull
around inside their heads and get worried about.

On the other hand, I've never heard one factual statement to the 
fact that airport x-rays WILL NOT harm the data. Seems to be the 
case, though.

  --scott

CLAIMER:  I speak for everybody!  :-O
 
--
Scott Truesdell