(I would like to preface this with a disclaimer: For one, this is off my business blog. Yes, I'm whoring the post because I feel it's important info to be shared and discussed. I will not post a link to it here, but it's on my profile.
Also, I apologize if this is missposted, but, again, it seemed the best place. If you disagree with the following, be my guest!
I started my company to guide and assist people with their understanding of technology, how it can help, and how it can hurt. If I seem particularly passionate about the following subject, it’s because I am.)
Before I start, this needs to be said: If you’re getting rid of a computer, erase everything.
* Log out of any and every account you own before getting rid of a machine. Clearing your browser’s History and Cache, as well.
* Reformat the hard drive multiple times. Or find a reputable tool to do so; I recommend a tool called DBAN.
* If you don’t know how, or are concerned, take the machine to a reputable repair shop (shameless plug: ME!). Ask questions. Ask – precisely – how will all the data be removed?
* If possible, remove the Hard Drive entirely, and keep it in your possession. (Again, ME!)
* Destroy previously-mentioned Hard Drive. Hammers, chisels, napalm, Semtex, electromagnetic shock... Go all Office Space on it. It's therapeutic.
* If you have an address sticker on the machine, scrape it off.
* Do not trust a non-profit donation center to erase the hard drive. I'll explain why in a minute.
Why, you might ask?
Say, for example, you have an aging computer in your home. It may take anywhere from two to five minutes to leave the Windows XP screen and see the Desktop with all your icons. * The once-white casing is now a lovely shade of mud, yellowed from either cigarette smoke or simply age. Grime collects along the edges, with smudges from food-encrusted fingers poking and prodding at the Eject button on the CD-R Burner. Perhaps the casing is cracked from moving (or, in the case of a laptop, a fall from a desk.) The ‘Intel Celeron D Inside‘ sticker might be half-peeling from curious fingertips (or children.)
Disgusting, no?
People point and laugh when they see the machine. You simply shake your head when a Software Update cripples your computer for the better part of an hour.
Fed-up, you throw your tower out with the trash. Better yet, you donate it to a non-profit, willing to take electronic refuse off your hands. Who cares what's done to it afterward? And good riddance to that 20lb. behemoth on your desk, to be replaced with a shiny new machine. Time for an upgrade!
Gone is the muddled Desktop where you couldn’t find anything. Gone is the three-page-wide Start Menu with all sorts of programs that were installed, but never used. Oh, and the ability to brew coffee, mow the lawn and read Hugo’s Les Miserables from cover-to-cover while waiting for your pages to load, in IE6, no less? Gone, also.
And what happened to all the files that were on the previous computer? Nothing. And that’s the problem. They’re still there.
Although you’re no longer in possession of the computer, someone else may have it. They may purchase it from the non-profit you made the donation. Maybe you simply tossed it to the curb, and someone picked it up. And that someone, when they turn on the computer, will have access to them all.
(Especially since you set the machine to automatically log-in because it was a waste of time to remember your password, or it took a few seconds too long to log in.)
iTunes Libraries. Word Documents. Web Browsing Histories. Bookmarks. Not a problem, right?
Family Photos. Saved login ID’s to Banks. Facebook Logins. Business Account logins. Amazon/PayPal/eBay logins. Instant Messenger logins. Google+ Logins…
Do I have your attention, now? Good.
Too often, I’ve come across machines that a client purchased, second-hand from friends, family, or a stranger on Craigslist, only to find that a person’s entire life and livelihood digitally reproduced before my eyes. Dramatic as it is, a part of me dies inside when I’m rooting through a machine to find that opening a web browser instantly brings me into someone’s Online Banking profile, for-their-eyes-only email accounts or an abruptly-left Instant Messenger chat!
Let me end with a story. On my way to a client, I stopped off at a nationally-known reseller of donated goods, out of the goodwill of patrons. (hint, hint!) After all, I pride myself on refurbishing systems that are ‘past-their-prime’ and selling them for well below what someone would expect a computer to cost.
On this day, I gravitated toward the locked glass case at the front of the store. Inside lay a corrugated cardboard shipping/carrying case bearing two distinct markings: The manufacturer logo and ‘As-is: Does not turn on.’
Challenge accepted.
Even curiouser, every bit of paperwork and cabling was included. This machine was as close to ‘brand new’ quality as possible.
After less than three minutes, I had the machine booted and operational, instantly loading up an installed copy of Windows XP. Oddly, no account password, so I was at the Desktop in seconds. After finding a Wireless signal, I soon found:
* Bank account information. (with CHECK IMAGES in the My Pictures folder)
* Court documents regarding an ongoing child custody case.
* Children’s photos
* Music
* FULL access to Gmail, Hotmail AND Yahoo email accounts…
All with shortcuts listed on the Desktop.
…After I was able to swallow my heart back into my chest, I promptly rebooted the machine, forgot everything I just witnessed, and erased any possible trace of this person’s data. Had the machine been found in a pawn shop, I would have considered it stolen property. Considering this was through a non-profit AND a complete package, my best assumption is that the previous owner had some unknown issue and simply tossed it aside in favor of a newer, sleeker, faster machine.
Moral of the story? Bring Hellfire (Or me!) down on your machine if you want your privacy to stay private.
* (If a Mac user, replace this with the Spinning Beach Ball O’ Death and OS X login prompt glued to your screen. Perhaps the chrome is flaking off your Macbook’s edges, your screen flickers with the occasional lines appearing, or perhaps you have the ‘Sad Mac’ icon burned into your LCD.)
So very true. That's the part that bothered me the most about the whole situation. I can only imagine it was an "out of sight/out of mind" issue.
I probably COULD have contacted the person via email and ask what the situation was, but that would have felt oddly intruding. That it was sitting there for months (so I'm told) made me think it wasn't something that was an immediate worry.
I'm pretty sure I broke more than a few laws just by "accessing data that was not mine to access."
Irregardless, I run into that on a near-daily basis when working on people's machines, in and outside of a business environment. The smart ones have NDA's for me to sign.
Though I never "tinker and tell," I recently read some article that said at least 26% of IT workers access/copy/talk about data they found on a system.
Hah. Actually I just finished doing remote support for a client. And the icons! The horror... The horror.
My favorite are the web browsers with, oh, fifteen or so toolbars. I love the one's that still have LYCOS as a search provider. Don't get me started when I see RealPlayer available!
Defragging. Some people do it too often. Four times a week is a bit excessive.
I'm a rather big proponent of apps like TrueCrypt for people. Though, not if they loose their password or delete the keyfile. Short of that, a RAID is good.
I know what this is like for sure, I had a buttload of computers scrounged from dumpsters or the side of the road, and I've built quite a collection of home movies and porn off them :P
I found one once that had all the hard drive pins bent and smashed, is that an effective way to do it? I donated a ton of old hard drives to a recycling plant last month without formatting them first, but I didn't really use most of them, and they were IDE and this place only sells SATA drives, so I'm assuming I'm ok.
Reason being that if someone has the precise make/model of the hard drive with the bent pins (and is feeling adventurous), it's quite possible to perform surgery on the drive - carefully removing the platters where the information is stored and placing them into the "new" drive.
Also, it's possible to bend the pins - again, carefully! - back into place to be read. Of course, if they're missing, see option one!
These are just two examples; there are other ways, of course.
The biggest hard drive I donated was 40 gb, the others were 30 or 20 gb, along with a 10 and a 2. Not worth all that much, but I never did online banking or anything anyways, so I should be fine. I know this particular recycling place had zero IDE drives, so they got recycled, not reused.
At the risk of sounding like I have tinfoil grafted to my head, even innocuous information can still be traced back to you. Of course, admittedly, the odds of someone picking up the drive for nefarious purposes is slim.
Scammers and ID theves are, by and large, a lazy lot. Some impress me with their determination, though.
No, I know, but considering the cool shit they had there, I doubt they even gave them a second glance. They had plenty of other SATA drives much bigger than a tiny 40 GB.
That said, if I were going to poke around for anything, I'd aim for a smaller drive.
< conjecture! >
Since most of the pre-built, off-the-shelf systems generally came with tiny IDE drives, from 40 - 80GB, I could probably guess that the person who had it was elderly. As such, they probably left banking information, pictures, documents (if they used it, of course.) < /conjecture >
True, true... The best thing I found was an audition for America's Next Top Model by some really ugly chick that seemed to think she was stunning. I should've put it on youtubem, it was hilarious... Found nudes of her too, that was sweet...
Not really. Then again, it depends on how much space you have.
If they're SATA drives, hopefully you have a bunch of SATA ports. I'm not a huge fan of just "daisy chaining" a bunch of drives together, and would rather plug one cable to one port on the board.
That said, if they're IDE drives, just have enough ribbon cables.
Makes sense. I thought about pulling the TB drive out of my current box and just using the 250 GB and using the TB drive as file storage so I can fix up my gf's laptop and have all the files on one computer, but I've been too lazy to care lately...
stab_the_freak