Efficiency of the Degasser in Breaking Bad

The first episode of the long-awaited fifth season of the Breaking Bad TV series did not have any chemical tricks in it, but we saw an excellent example of using the physical principle, although its essence was significantly hyperbolized. Beware, the publication contains spoilers.

The protagonist of the series - a former chemistry teacher Walter White - and his less aged friend, along with the cold-blooded killer, tried to destroy the data on the laptop, which was recorded video from surveillance cameras. Law enforcement services access to files on a computer could be crowned with many troubles, including arrest, investigation, jail sentences and the death penalty for those responsible. At the time of discarding the strange fact of accumulating all video clips from several cameras on a small hard disk of a laptop, it seems reasonable to use a separate video surveillance server for these needs, and notice how the characters tried to destroy the information: for these purposes a huge electromagnet crane powered by from several car batteries.

In fact, the trio created a huge improvised dehauser, that is, a device designed to demagnetize a computer hard disk, and therefore destroy any information recorded on it. We all know perfectly well what happens in the vicinity of floppy disks and permanent magnets, but will such a device work in real life, when installed in a small van connected to a thick wall of evidence storage?
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Experts PCMag site expressed serious doubts. In industrial hard drive dehauser, a very strong magnetic field is created, which in new models only has to be increased, as the drives are protected more and more. And hard drives should be located close to the de-aus, and not at a distance. Brian Westver called such a device justified only if it was necessary to slightly damage the information.

Reni Schafer, head of sales and marketing for Data Security, a company that specializes in data destruction, pointed out that this method will not work. The magnetic field, having an obstacle in the form of a wall of good reinforced concrete on its way to the desired computer, will weaken considerably.

Linda Shiro, vice president of sales for VS Security Products, a manufacturer of dehoutheusers, discussed a scanned series with her company's employees. Together they came to the conclusion that the effect shown is only hyperbolization and simplification of the work of a real physical property. Todd Schuelke, who works at Iomega Corporation, also talks about exaggerating the effect. Nevertheless, Todd called such a fragment "good science fiction."

As the video on the creation of a series on the AMC website shows, a real industrial electromagnet from a crane was used and a lot of tricks for flying objects that most likely would remain still.

Walter's admirers can only hope for sufficiently strong mechanical damage by the impact of the Samsung device and the absence of solid-state drives in it, because, due to their non-magnetic nature, the data on them, as is well known, is not cleared even by the most powerful dehausers.