One of the hardest decisions for a gardener...

...what to do once your security has been breached.

well actually it is an easy decision ~ rip them up and compost them.

It's hard to actually do it.

My neighbour was robbed, so my garden will have been made by the thieves because of the way they accessed the property (via the chicken coops).

Not only them, but the cops of course have been out scouting as well. At the moment they could do me for 3 plants, the other 9 are too small to be considered viable plants. That's $2000 for cultivation, but I could still record no conviction because I have no previous offences.

Wait a couple of months once the indicas start flower and we are looking at the sort of amounts that they can lay trafficking charges without any evidence of trafficking. Simply on the number of viable plants.

I can't even give away the plants, the people that know I smoke have already been supplied to the brim with triffid clones... and I've spent to long cultivating a reputation as a reformed smoker to go surprising people with free plants.

I will be reformatting both computers in the next couple of days, after that I wont be posting online with regard to cannabis. There isn't much sense getting rid of all my plants if when the cops knock on the door, find no plants, seeds or paraphernalia only to seize my hard drives.

So this is a bit of a good bye as well, at least for the current growing season.

Stay well :hippy:

Best of luck Sarah. Been there, done that. But don't play if you can't walk away... you're making the smart choice.

F....n thiefs. Truly a bummer. Did you get a ticket for the plants? Regardless, I hope it all works out ok for ya, and that we'll see you back online soon.

Can't they still grab info from your hard drive even if you reformat? What state do you live in? Just wondering. Good Luck.

If they find no plants, seeds, or other physical evidence of growing on the premises, they are not going to spend the money on sending your hard drive to a lab to retrieve ghost files off it. I keep my grow info on a tiny thumb drive that is small enough to flush or toss in the microwave (on the 'popcorn' setting of course! hahahahahaha).

You can instal proxy's for your internet sequrity if you wish to continue posting

Thanks for the sympathy, I am feeling a bit sorry for myself just now.

I'm grateful for the way our police force is funded, nabbing backyard growers isn't a funding priority. I expect they will have photographed the plant and reported it, but seeing as it was growing in soil, there is no urgency to execute a warrant as the plant can't be moved to a new location.

PlantHeadJ, yeah they can, a reformat will only remove the obvious, but without the obvious, as Stinky said, it isn't worth the cost and I am ready for a reformat anyway. It's a semi regular event with old computers and small hdd's.

Connection speeds in Australia (unless you are on the main trunk out of Canberra) are abysmally slow, much too slow to surf via a proxy, but a nice idea.Thanks.

I'll be back after I'm satisfied the plods that I am not of interest to them. Some might call it over kill, but in 22 years of growing I have always followed my gut and destroyed crops that I suspected were compromised. In that time I have had one theft and no busts and that is how I want to keep it.

That sucks sarah, sorry to hear. Sounds like you have a good handle on things though, but for what it's worth I want to mention something concerning your hard drive (and this goes for all others who keep sensitive and/or damning info on hard drives)

Formatting isn't the "total erasing" act that most people consider it. If you're going to go through the trouble to doing a re-install for security's sake, use the proper tool: this comes in the form of proper formatting utility that most hard drive manufacturers offer for free on their websites. Sometimes these utilities are referred to as "0 cell writers" - basically what happens is the utility writes a zero to every single steeenkin sector on that drive. Nothing survives. Far better than the format exe supplied with Windows, which only erases the first and last 1million bytes of info, and doesn't even touch the boot sector of the disc.

Having worked in the industry for awhile, I can tell you it isn't hard at all to recover things that were simply deleted, or formatted in the normal sense of the word.

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I keep my grow info on a tiny thumb drive that is small enough to flush or toss in the microwave (on the 'popcorn' setting of course! hahahahahaha).

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That's the way to go, with a pen drive! :thumbsup: I've found them to be surprisingly resistant to water and ESD. I'd spare your house the smell of throwing one in the kitchen reactor though - surely stinky owns a hammer? ;)

Death by microwave is still the best way to destroy info on CDs or DVDs, and it only takes 2-3 seconds. Looks cool too.

best way to permentantly delete all your cd/dvd/hdd data:

1) fire off a high-voltage emp blast directly at it.
2) google or youtube "thermite"...itll do the job
3) build a gauss, rail, or col gun and fire metal pegs right through all 3 platters!

4) set a trap with a live goat and put your thumb drive on the ground. Eventually, a dragon or dinosaur will come and step on it.

just make sure its in a cryogenic shaving cream canister.

Back up your genetics and ditch.

Stay free.

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Originally Posted by hybridlove420

best way to permentantly delete all your cd/dvd/hdd data:

1) fire off a high-voltage emp blast directly at it.
2) google or youtube "thermite"...itll do the job
3) build a gauss, rail, or col gun and fire metal pegs right through all 3 platters!

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or you could just zero out the drive multiple times, hey presto. and hey, the drive isn't broke!

just re write stuff on the drive after you format it and they cant get to anything before it.

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

4) set a trap with a live goat and put your thumb drive on the ground. Eventually, a dragon or dinosaur will come and step on it.

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:S2:

This, by far, would be the most entertaining method. Sounds like it might just work on pesky neighbors, too!