confidential info on old harddrives.

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_netcom.com>
Date: Mon May 31 18:15:57 1999

On Mon, 31 May 1999, Chuck McManis wrote:

> At 04:15 PM 5/30/99 -0400, bluoval wrote:
> >If I buy a computer w/ a hard drive, what ever data it might contain is mine
> >also.
>
> Ok, if you want to proceed down this line of reasoning, consider the
> following ethical test, if you pass you get to keep the gold.
>
> 1) You buy a house, you invite your friend over, he finds a kilo
> of Cocaine stuffed into the couch and happens to work for the
> DEA. Do you:



    Hmmmm... with fond respect accorded to My Learned
Colleague... this tautology seems a bit specious.

  So I would rather propose the following scenaria:

  You find a "perfect-10" Magnesium GridCase at a local thriftshop
for $5.. you talk them down to $3 and it's yours. Upon firing it
up, you find:

  A) the entire 'black book' of a notorious drug lord... databases,
names, addresses, spreadsheets, etc. Among the names are various
prominent politicians, celebrities, and others. It is clear they
have been.... misbehaving.

  B) The complete record of a well known high-profile psychiatrist,
including some very 'private' info on, again, various Famous Folk.
A few of these Folk are in "positions of trust", and the info would
tend to utterly disqualify them from those positions.

  C) The business and research records of a successful competitor of
yours... all of the data required to smash them like a slimy bug
and take over sole dominance in your market.


  Ball's in your court. All you *really* wanted was the computer...


  Cheers

John.

PS: A minor variation of "B" actually happened to me. As soon as I
realized what was on the machine, I phoned the Dr. involved,
offering the machine back to him. The situation was resolved when I
assured him that I would wipe the HD, which I did while we were on
the phone. [It was a Kaypro 10... user area '0' had been DEL'd, but
areas 1-16 had been forgotten about]
Received on Mon May 31 1999 - 18:15:57 BST