alexnucci

Got it! Thank you so much for the feedback. Already replied.

Cheers!

Gals and guys, thanks a lot for all of your comments.

We just launched 2 days ago, and it really means a lot to get this amount of feedback so soon. It helps us make the product better right away (it already did).

Giving you more information and clearing up our messaging will be the first thing to tackle, we already got started. Followed by additional shipping carriers, video feed of our facility (or the destruction of your drive) and better packaging. These things will all make our product more attractive and make our customers feel more confidence towards our service.

We want to help all of you destroy your drives, give us a shot (some of you already did, thanks!)

Please let me know if you have any other questions. Cheers!

Thanks for the feedback, we'll look into this.

I may be asking for too much, but if you can email me a screenshot to [email protected], I'd appreciate it. If you want, send your address too and I'll mail you a Destroyer.io sticker.

Thanks again and sorry about the bug. Cheers.

I agree, these extreme case scenarios are theoretically possible, though extremely unlikely.

Like I mentioned in my answer to your other comment, shipping is the weakest link (or biggest risk) of our company. We'll do our best to figure out ways to make customers comfortable with shipping their drives to us.

Thanks again for taking the time to go line by line.

> Already removed the NSA wording. It's amazing how many people it spooked.

> It's safe to say we're going to stay away from referencing other government agencies.

> I answered this in your other comment, on the other thread, but we're only using USPS.

> Offering some sort of en-route layer to our product seems likely. There will always be a weakest link when it comes to data security (proving your social for some, your data being stored in the cloud for others, etc.) and the fact that you're shipping the drive to us is ours. We'll work on making this as much as a non-issue as the business model allows.

> The service that your hospital has is exactly what big corporations can afford. We're filling a gap for companies that are not there yet.

Shoot me an email at [email protected] with your address and I'll send a Destroyer.io sticker your way (if you trust me with your address :). The feedback here has been great, and the goal is to offer a service that makes everyone feel safe, this thread definitely pushes us in that direction.

Excellent, point taken.

We're really looking at giving customers the option of doing something to the drive before it ships out. It seems that there's enough demand for it (based on comments we've gotten over the past two days).

Wow, two for two. You will be our new proofreader.

Yes, that's a typo as well, we only deal with USPS at the moment.

There are two main reasons for this: 1. Every person would be be able to use the service from their home or place of business. 2. They offer free package pick up service.

We use USPS Priority Mail, which takes 2 to 3 days from the majority of the country.

We're not targeting a specific small business kind, we're going more by size. Big enough to have several hard drives in their offices, small enough that enterprise shredding services are too expensive and big for them.

A lot of companies are moving their storage to the cloud, and the old hard rives need to be destroyed. Other companies upgraded their hard drive size (from 500gb to 1tb) and have no use for the old one. And finally, a lot of hard drives fail (there's about a 10% chance your hard drive will fail, each year, after its second year.

We want to destroy all of those drives :)

Thanks for the kind words!

Our target market, at this point, is: small businesses and end consumers.

Our goal is to eventually serve enterprise customers, but we're not going after that for the moment for several reasons (resources, depth of product offering, etc.)

A typical customer would be a small business that goes through 50 or so hard drives per year, enough that they'd want to send us a batch every month. They would also be interested of getting a third party (us) certificate of destruction for their records (industry standard).

Thanks for your feedback and questions. Let me know if there's anything else that I can answer for you. Cheers!

You are right, that's an option that would serve some of our customers.

We'll definitely expand in our service and shipping options as we grow.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to give us some feedback. Cheers!

The problem isn't in connecting our site to an extra shipping carrier, it's in getting the required volume for our rates and service to be excellent. Also about receiving three different batch deliveries daily.

So, once volume picks up, we'll offer FedEx or UPS along with our standard USPS service.

Thanks for the feedback and recommendation. Cheers!

Hi, I'm Alex Nucci, founder of Destroyer.io. Sorry for the late response, I was just tipped about this HN thread. I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

HIPPA typo:

Thanks for pointing out the typo, it has been fixed. We just opened up the site today, I expect to find a few extra mistakes and bugs that we'll have to fix.

---

"Easiest way to destroy a drive":

DBAN is not physical destruction, which is what we do. We do it this way because it's the only way to guarantee that your data will disappear, forever.

Taking a hammer to the drive, disassembling it and burning it might do the trick. We're not here to serve hardcore DIYers, we're here to serve people that need a guaranteed, quick and inexpensive service that does it for them.

Like any other service business, there's a group of potential customers that will want to wash their own car, cook their own meal, paint their own nails, clean their own house, cut their own hair, etc. We believe that we're offering great value for the service being provided, at just $19 (and $10 for extra drives).

We also believe that paying $19, checking out in under 60 seconds, getting a box delivered to you, dropping the drive inside the box and then just dropping off the package at a drop box (or scheduling a pick up) is the easiest way to go about this.

---

NSA wording:

When we say we use the same methods recommended by the NSA, we're trying to say that we use the same methods that the government uses to destroy their drives.

Having said that, I'm by now certain that the NSA wording will be changed. Just seeing those words makes people uncomfortable, and after a lot of feedback it seems that it's doing our company a disservice.

---

Drop box:

This option is not for everyone, and we realize that. You can also schedule a free pickup or drop it off yourself at any of their facilities.

---

Locking mechanism, etc.:

These are upgrades that we've though about. Some seem more possible than others, but we can definitely improve on the choices being offered (currently just one). Improvements across the board will be implemented as we grow and get more feedback, that's for sure.

--

In conclusion, thanks for taking the time to detail your pain points. We shouldn't be leaving so many unanswered questions, our messaging should be clearer and leave nothing to doubt. I'll take all of your feedback, along with the rest that I've gotten today, and improve our message and service.

Let me know if there's anything else that I can answer for you. Cheers!

Hi, I'm Alex Nucci, founder of Destroyer.io. Sorry for the late response, I was just tipped about this HN thread. I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

You can check out my answer to pjlegato's question above. I'm guessing it'll answer some of the questions you might have as well.

I can tell from this thread that we have to exude more trust. We know we're not for every customer, but we do want to make sure that the ones that are a right fit (small businesses and end consumers) feel comfortable with us.

If there's anything specific in our messaging or process that you'd like for us to point out or improve, let me know.

Thanks again, cheers!

Hi, I'm Alex, founder of Destroyer.io. I was just tipped about this HN thread, I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

We don't expect this to be a problem. The interceptor would be breaking several laws. Even if you aside that breaking the law is not a problem for them, there are far easier and less expensive ways to access your data. Like accessing it through your internet connection or breaking into your house.

Either way, all of your guys' concerns are valid, and I understand your point of view. We'll grow and improve our messaging + service as time goes by, that's for sure.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Cheers!

Hi, I'm Alex, founder of Destroyer.io. I was just tipped about this HN thread, I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

Yes, that's a great idea, and it's the next step. We plan on having a live video feed of our facility. We also want to record how each order is destroyed, and show the drive owner see how we destroyed their drive.

The site was just opened up today. As we grow and get feedback, we'll adapt and add more features to our service.

Hi, sorry for the late response. I was just tipped about this HN thread, I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

I've answered your same questions a couple of times today, here's what I've been saying:

Great question. Naturally, most of the inquiries or concerns around this service are going to revolve around trust and security.

The obvious and straight forward answer is that we're not. The more complicated one would be that I'd break a large amount of serious laws if we were doing something like that.

When testing the service out, some users asked for further assurance. The solution that seemed to be liked the most involved a video feed (or pictures), that showed how we opened the package, removed the drive and destroyed it. That's something that we'd build down the road if I get enough requests or feel that it would move the needle in the right direction.

For now, here's what we do: receive the drive, degauss (demagnetize) it, destroy it. The customer is notified when the package arrives and when the drive is destroyed, at which point we send a certificate of destruction.

Also, we'm in the process of getting our NAID AAA, eStewards, R2 and ISO 14001 certifications. The machines and processes that we use follow all of their guidelines, it's just a matter of getting approved (and paying the fees).

Let me know if you have any other ideas on how we could show/proof that we're trustworthy. Interested in listening to any suggestions.

Hi, hope you're doing well!

What phone are you using? There might be a bug, and I'd like to fix it.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like on my iPhone 5: http://destroyer.io/chat-screenshot.png

The chat box should be at the bottom right hand side of the screen.

Let me know and I'll get on it. Thanks!

PS: Just noticed there's another HN thread on Destroyer.io, I had posted one, and had been answering questions, here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8074934

Yes! This idea had actually come up before.

I'll definitely give it an in depth look, this could make the whole process safer.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi, hope all is well.

Nothing on the site is a lie. Especially, the fact that erasing data from a hardware using software is not a guaranteed way of ensuring that your data ever sees the light of day.

As a matter of fact, check out DBAN's homepage: http://www.dban.org/. The first bullet point: No guarantee of data removal (e.g. DBAN does not detect or securely erase SSDs)

Also, do a quick google search for "data extraction after formatting", you'll find plenty of solutions. From software downloads to forensic labs.

I will admit, however, that the FAQ answer lacks some depth. The site just launched, and the FAQ section is very much a work in progress. I will make sure to give more details, and reference some articles that back the point up.

Let me know if you have more questions. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the comment.

Yup, you can definitely destroy a hard drive (or almost anything, for that matter) yourself. This is just a guaranteed, safe and secure way to get it done for you.

Also, we recycle all of the parts, nothing ends up in a landfill. Hard drives can be pretty toxic.

Cheers!

Thanks for the article, and I understand your concern.

Adding FedEx as an upgrade option is something that is in the plans. Since we're just launching, we started out with USPS because it's the most cost effective and convenient (daily mailbox pickup and you can even schedule one free).

Having an alternative shipping method should help.

I understand your concerns, but this particular scenario seems a little far fetched.

USPS would have to have a very strong interest in your hard drive. Know when you ship it. Intersect the package. Repackage it up exactly as it was. And finally, deliver it. This is extremely complicated, and they would be breaking an immense amount of laws. If they had such a strong interest in getting a hold of your drive, they'd be far better off stealing it from your home (or hacking into it).

I do understand that there are some other cases that won't be as extreme (how do we guarantee that we do in fact destroy it upon arrival?). Some level of trust, as with any service that you give you social security info, personal information or even Dropbox has to exist. Our aim is to answer any question that might happen in a realistic and likely scenario, and make sure that our messaging is on point.

Also, as I mentioned above, we're in the process of getting our NAID AAA, eStewards, R2 and ISO 14001 certifications.

Hope this answers your question, let me know if it makes sense (or shoot another question my way). Cheers!

Great question. Naturally, most of the inquiries or concerns around this service are going to revolve around trust and security.

The obvious and straight forward answer is that we don't do that. The more complicated one would be that we'd break a large amount of serious laws if we were doing something like that.

When testing the service out, some users asked for further assurance . The solution that seemed to be liked the most involved a video feed (or pictures), that showed how we opened the package, removed the drive and destroyed it. That's something that I'd build down the road if I get enough requests or feel that it would move the needle in the right direction.

For now, here's what we do: receive the drive, degauss (demagnetize) it, destroy it. The customer is notified when the package arrives and when the drive is destroyed, at which point we send a certificate of destruction.

Also, we're in the process of getting our NAID AAA, eStewards, R2 and ISO 14001 certifications. The machines and processes that we use follow all of their guidelines, it's just a matter of getting approved (and paying the fees).

Let me know if you have any other ideas on how we could show/proof that we're trustworthy. Interested in listening to any suggestions.

I'll take an invite if you're still dishing them out. Thanks!