confidential info on old harddrives.

From: bluoval <bluoval_at_mindspring.com>
Date: Sat May 29 23:26:02 1999

I wasn't following this thread but here's my opinion.
A buy a house and everything it contains. There just happenes to be a treasure
map in there leading me to a pot of gold. who owns the gold? ME.

Bottom line: Clean house before selling.

Unless I buy an old computer from the government, I wouldn't waste any time
looking for any information on there. If the gov't left plans/info about a
nuclear device in there, I'm sure they wouldn't blame me if I tried to publish
it. They'd just raid my house, confiscate all my stuff, throw me in a hole
somewhere untill they're satisfied with my answers to their questions, drop me
off on some remote desert road and deny it ever happened. If they ever
admitted they forgot to delete the drive's contents they'd be the joke of the
century. Same with everybody.






Sipke de Wal wrote:

> A last thought on this for you legal guys out there! Would'n it be
> sensible to design some kind of 'declaration of trust' regarding private
> content of equipment. So that the receivers can be held responsable for
> any irrisponsable disclosure of private data. And also that the donator
> has signifies that he has (had) knowledge about the informational
> content of his donation. In serious cases a Judge may decide who has
> acted liable. But most of ours would live by such a contact and it may
> endorse reliable image about the restoration and preservation of classic
> hardware & software.
>
> Sipke de Wal
>
> Tony Duell wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Maybe you should inform the press. Taking care that they do not publish
> > > any sensitive data and stipulating that your personalia will not be
> > > revealed.
> >
> > Isn't that the _worst_ thing you could do?
> >
> > At the moment there is no problem. All of us here (I hope) are sensible
> > about deleting personal data. So there is no risk in giving any of us a
> > machine with such data on it.
> >
> > The last thing we need is the public saying "I couldn't be sure that none
> > of my [love letters/tax returns/medical records] were on that
> > [Altair/PERQ/DEC 10/etc] so I broke it into little pieces so that nobody
> > could ever read them"
> >
> > -tony
Received on Sat May 29 1999 - 23:26:02 BST