An intriguing article over at Polygon gives the lowdown on British company Secure Drives' Autothysis128s and Autothysis128t solid state drives (SSDs) with 128GB of storage space. These drives would be fairly unremarkable SSDs, were it not for the ability to delete their data by sending an SMS message to a special self-destruct number like some kind of "Mission: Impossible" master spy. And that data's not just wiped. Oh no. These little beauties are akin to high-tech piggy banks; once you've made the decision to delete the data, the drive is physically destroyed, with the NAND flash chips and security controller broken inside the drive's enclosure.
Text message is just one way the data held on Secure Drives' devices could be erased. Removing the drive from a PC, failing too many PIN prompts, a low battery level, or activating a "tap-to-destroy" function on a touchscreen "token" accessory will also see the data irrecoverably deleted. The drives even have their own built-in GSM access. If the signal goes quiet for too long...the drive is destroyed.
Secure Drives boasts that its Autothysis drives conform to more than 100 country-specific data protection laws. But true peace of mind, and the chance to feel James Bond's less-handsome brother in the process, doesn't come cheap. You'll have to part with at least £967 (about $1,567) for Secure Drives' base SSD, £111 (about $180) for each touchscreen token to link the drive, and £29 ($47) a year for your GSM subscription after that.
