Comment Re:What an idiot (Score 4, Interesting) 180
A skilled hacker / engineer could create a system for under $40 that would circumvent this.
Use two microcontrollers (a raspberry pi would be overkill - I'd use a $10 STM32 Nucleo board), one hidden somewhere in your house that has a small coil around a power line which introduces a signal into the power wires, and another in the case of the PC that monitors the signal generated by the first microcontroller. As soon as the device inside the PC detected loss of the signal it could then shut the PC down. Or trip a relay connected to a servo that allows acid to flow into the HDD. It could also have light sensors (covering the largest spectrum possible) to detect the case opening, which would also trigger the destruct mechanism. It would be powered by 4 AA batteries when external power is removed. I would also add a trivial voltage divider circuit to an ADC line on the microcontroller to monitor battery power, and if it got down close to 5V it would destroy the device.
There are dozens of things you could do along those lines. Place a magnet in whatever the PC is setting on and then have a magnetometer sensor in the buttom of the case connected to the microcontroller. If the PC is moved then it destroys the media. Etc, etc.