Old Data

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Mon Mar 30 20:31:44 1998

On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Seth J. Morabito wrote:

> So, what do you all do with old data you find? I'm not religious about
> this -- I don't necessarily think there's a "right" and a "wrong". But
> it's a worthy subject to talk about, and definitely has historical
> implications. Hypothetically speaking, for instance, let's say you came
> accross a tape with some interoffice memos and source code from Bell
> Labs, 1970 -- UNIX development notes, memos to and from Dennis Ritchie
> and Ken Thompson, that sort of thing :) Certainly very historically
> significant, and I'd probably end up cutting it to CD or something.
> But that's a pretty black-and-white example, I'm sure there's a lot of
> gray area out there.

First, it's impractical to simply wipe out a disk as soon as you get it.
On Unix systems, there's sort of a separation between user data and system
data, but the separation is more poorly defined for an MS-DOS system for
example, and you want to retain the useful system data in almost every
case.

When there is personal data present on a system, I don't go out of my way
to view it. If I find some directories which contain docs or database
info, that's generally the first stuff I start deleting to reclaim space.
On most systems you find, it is difficult to make a correlation between
data and real people, so viewing personal data on such systems might be
ethically "ambiguous", but it's at least a level removed from going
through personal data on your company's systems, which is Clearly Wrong
(TM).
Received on Mon Mar 30 1998 - 20:31:44 BST