Used Computers Saturated With Personal Info

WLKY ^ | 1/16/03 | AP

[hoosierskypilot]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Computer hard drives are a lot tougher than you might think.

Two grad students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they've been able to retrieve a lot of data from dozens of second-hand computers.

In a study, they bought dozens of used hard drives at computer shops and on eBay.

They say 49 of the hard drives contained information ranging from credit-card numbers to love letters and pornography.

They say merely deleting files from a hard drive -- or even taking a sledgehammer to it -- doesn't necessarily do the trick.

Experts say the only sure way to expunge information from a hard drive is to write over the old information with new data.

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[asformeandformyhouse]

Experts say the only sure way to expunge information from a hard drive is to write over the old information with new data.

I use BCWIPE from www.jetico.com. Anyone interested might want to check it out.

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[Keith in Iowa]

It's like deja view all over again.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/823761/posts

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[toenail]

Eraser

[babygene]

In the late 80s I headed up a project at Hewlett-Packard to declassify disk drives for the government. The software was distributed for free for use by the defense dept.

It was very specific to our SCSI disk drives. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to scrub a disk mech. Consider this:

Tracks and sectors are spared automatically. A spared track still contains data. Since you must scrub these spare tracks, you must un-spare them before you start the operation. I can't imagine that you could write a general-purpose routine that would work on any disk drive. You had to know a lot about the drive model to make it work. Even then and with the relatively small drives we worked with at the time, it could take days to scrub a drive to the defense deptartment specifications.

[Billy_bob_bob]

I've always scrubbed my old hard drives before throwing them out, and it only takes a minute. Five or six whacks with an eight pound sledgehammer takes care of them real quick. I defy anyone to re-construct data from a hard drive where the platters are smashed out, whacked repeatedly and left bent and in pieces. Five or six good whacks on concrete, and that's all she wrote. If anyone is able to retrieve data from my old drive my hat's off to them.

[Grut]

Most hard drive makers have a 'zero stuffer' or 'low level format' utility you can download from their sites that writes a zero to every address on one of their drives. This is useful not only to write over any old information but also to regain control of drives where the partition table has been corrupted, making it impossible to reformat the drive.

[asformeandformyhouse]

Even then and with the relatively small drives we worked with at the time, it could take days to scrub a drive to the defense deptartment specifications.

With BCWIPE set on DOD specs it can take days to scrub a drive. This product also gives you the option of wiping every file when deleted, that way the scrubbing only takes place for the individual file and not the entire drive.

[CJ Wolf]

Can you dig info off a drive that has been degaused?

[Phantom Lord]

I know jack squat about computers. Nothing! In fact, Im not even sure if I'm logged on.

But from what I understand, every single graphic, audio file, etc... that I have ever viewed on the web remains on my harddrive somewhere. It seems to me that this would over time start taking up a tremendous amount of space since I visit a lot of graphic intense and audio sites. Wouldnt this cause my computer to slow down and have other problems over time? And if so, how do I "erase" or "wipe clean", whatever the proper term is these files from my harddrive without getting rid of or damaging the other info on my harddrive that I need for the darn thing to work right?

[hoosierskypilot]

How about an evening in the fireplace (with fire, of course)? That should do it, too.

[RISU]

Get "Evidence Elimiator" from the UK. It costs money, but it will wipe out Micorsoft's "remote admin" capability they are using to colect dat from your machine in the background and erases everything you dont want every time you boot up.

[Deguello]

I you want to trash your hard drive and don't want anything recoverable on it you can use a wire welder, acr welder or the poor man's welder.

The poor man's welder is your jumper cables direct from the battery to the hard drive.