confidential info on old harddrives.

From: Marvin <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Wed May 26 19:16:50 1999

Allison J Parent wrote:
>
> <I'm sure that lawyers are the worst because they know that if you did
> <anything with the information or even made it public knowledge that you ha
> <the information they would successfully sue you for everything you own.
>
> It's a foolish practice. Running Norton's diskwipe is a good thing but at
> least delete and better yet do a format.

Both deleting and formatting are generally pretty trivial to recover from on
a PC. Another technique I have used when I didn't have immediate access to a
wiping program (and *think* it is okay although not as good as doing a
wipedisk) is to overwrite the offending file with another larger one, i.e.
"copy [bigfile.ext] [offending file.ext]" and of course, then deleting the
file. If it were *really sensitive* data, then I would disassemble the
drive, and then hit the platters with a bulk eraser. I have heard that it
is possible to recover data from the HD even after doing a wipedisk by
removing the platters and then analyzing the platters (urban legend?)
Received on Wed May 26 1999 - 19:16:50 BST