(Columbia) Feb. 20, 2003 - Hitting a computer
with a hammer? Experts say it may actually be a
good idea, if you're Getting rid of it for good.
Mark McLaughlin of Computer Forensics
International says, "Your personal data is at
risk when somebody resells a machine."
Todd Baitsholts had an old computer he wanted
to give to charity. First he reformatted the
hard drive, then he reinstalled windows, "We
hope to erase all the data and not have it
accessible to anyone."
Todd agreed to let computer expert Kevin
Kranz take a look at the machine. He found old
invoices and financial data, a treasure trove
for someone who might have identity theft on his
mind, "It took me about 35 to 40 minutes to get
this data."
Todd says, "There's quite a bit of stuff
here," the list of recovered files takes up
pages and pages, "It's surprising that they were
able to get this much information off of there."
McLaughlin says, "A file is never really
deleted until it's overwritten, and that's a
very fundamental issue in computer forensics."
He's sounding the alarm after he tested eight
hard drives purchased at second hand shops
around the country, "We found some unbelievable
things. Credit card numbers, social security
numbers of celebrities, of Oscar winning
actors."
Even at a graveyard for government computers
three randomly-selected discarded hard drives
were found to have undeleted data galore.
To protect yourself, reformatting won't work.
McLaughlin says, "It makes the file inactive,
but the file contents are still there." He says,
while erasing data magnetically helps scramble
the files, even it is not fool proof, "What they
should do first is they should wipe the
drive."
They should also use software that scans the
disc and bit by bit overwrites the old data,
replacing the important stuff with frivolous
numbers anywhere from three to 20 times, "And,
when you overwrite it so many times, it's
unrecoverable."
While the software costs about $40,
McLaughlin says the best method for making that
data disappear is both free and easy, "What I
recommend is taking the drive out of the machine
and taking a drill and running a drill through
it several times," in other words: physically
destroy the drive.
After looking over the data retrieved from
his old computer, Todd has some advice for
anyone about to pitch a PC, "I'd find another
way of deleting the information before I gave it
away, and I'd know where I'm giving it."
by Scott
Hawkins
posted 3:47pm by Chris
Rees
