They're looking for drives that haven't been wiped clean and contain valuable data.
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News
Posted on 01/31/2006 3:10:34 PM PST by Lokibob
Buyers on eBay troll the online auction site for used drives in the hope that the platters haven't been wiped clean and contain valuable data, including credit card numbers, a researcher said Monday.
Simson Garfinkel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard's Center for Research on Computation and Society, has been buying used hard drives on eBay since 2001, then analyzing the data he finds on some of the devices.
Of the 236 drives Garfinkel bought, 7 contained more than 300 recoverable credit card numbers; one from had more than 11,000 unique account numbers that he could retrieve.
That's because only 19 percent of drives he acquired had been wiped clean. The majority of previous owners had either not touched the drives or had only run the DOS commands FDISK and FORMAT, which actually leave data on the drive so users with simple diagnostic tools can read the information.
Some eBay buyers are sniffing for such drives. "I think that many drives sell for more than their market value," on eBay, Garfinkel said in an e-mail interview with TechWeb. The only explanation: they're playing the possibilities, and expect there's data on some of the drives they buy.
Garfinkel even tracked down the original owners of the 7 credit card-packed drives, using basic detective work such as analyzing the most common e-mail addresses on the platter and/or reviewing intact Word documents for clues.
The drive with 11,609 unique credit card numbers came from a medical center, which had also disposed of another drive with 81 additional numbers that Garfinkel purchased. Other drives came from an ATM (with 827 unique numbers), a supermarket (1,356 numbers), and an auto dealerships (498 numbers).
By Garfinkel's calculations, about 1,000 used drives are sold daily on eBay. Using his findings -- 3 percent of the drives he purchased contained more than 300 recoverable credit card numbers -- about 30 of those devices have confidential financial information.
Was the name Clinton??
I like to use an arc welder. Turn the current all the way up and feed a stick of 6011 straight into the drive. When it comes out the other side, you're done.
I wrapped mine in aluminum foil ... and then placed it in my wood stove for a couple of days. With a hot fire going, of course.
I find that very hard to believe.
Worked for me.
....I'd probably make a small amount off them.....enough to make it funny.
You can reply to the feedback people leave you. You can also add to the feedback you've already left for others.
Don't worry about 2 little negatives. If the other guy has a bunch of negatives, point that out in your feedback/responses to him.
How?
>That's a long way from "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme." Is he the short one or the one with the kinky hair?
The one with the kinky hairs.
Simon is the short one, aka half-a-man.
See post #19 for a laugh!
40 gig drive from a small PC store used. 5 bucks.
10 bucks for a usb connector. BAM a 40 gig USB hard drive.
Who needs Ebay for used PC stuff?
The used drives I get are pulled out of upgrading PCs
What does one do when selling ones used notebook computer?
Is the hard drive as easy to remove and replace from a notebook as from a desktop? And are laptop hard drives as inexpensive as desktop computers? Thanks for the info ...
Has there been a change in eBay policy regarding feedback?
I've been eBaying for a long time and as far as I know their policy is NO feedback will be deleted or retracted unless mutually agreed to by both parties...and even that is rare.
This could actually be a good way to make some money. Wipe the drive, and then present the drive on eBay like you have no idea what you're selling. Let the fun begin.
Correct
That's what I'm thinking.
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