![]() | |
![]() | |
![]() |
Personal Technology Information |
|
![]() |
Deleting and Destroying Data Forever
Peoples' private information needs to stay private, even after it has been erased. Wait a minute, after it's been erased? Have you ever given away an old computer or diskette, deleting the files off it, or giving it a quick format to make sure your information is gone? That might not be enough to stop some one from easily recovering the information! When you delete a file, normally the operating system and file system say, "ok the file is gone!" but at the physical level the information is still there. If you were to run a recovery program you would be able to see information that you have deleted. In order to get rid of old data you actually need to write over that same physical location on the hard drive several times to make sure it is gone, or at least much harder to recover. The standard for most government agencies is to do a seven pass wipe. That means that the hard drive will be written over with various sequences and random data seven time to be considered clean. There are many end user applications that can assist you by wiping data as you delete it multiple times, however it will slow down your system significantly if you are deleting large amounts of data. For the average home user I wouldn't suggest wiping your deleted items more than three or four times, unless you are really worried about the information being recovered. If you plan on wiping away the entire computer there is some applications that you can use that run from a boot diskette that will allow you to wipe the entire hard drive from start to finish. This process takes several hours, usually left as an "all nighter." (One of those programs you start before you go to sleep!) You may be thinking, this is great for writeable media, but what about one-write media, such as CD's, DVD's and things like that? Stores sell pretty cool CD shredders, or machines that will indent the media with little holes or pock marks that make it unreadable. But my personal favorite (Do not do this, it's probably dangerous, and will be bad for the unit) is to put CD/DVD media in the microwave for two seconds. It makes the media in to this really cool spider web sort of cracked design that I like to hang on my pin board. As I mentioned, you shouldn't do this method, it's probably really bad for the microwave and might send some bad wave lengths through the room in to your brain, and it will make your microwave smell bad. You have been warned. The final problem you might have is with hard drives that have failed, often they die at a random time, with whatever information you had on it. You don't just want to throw it in the trash, just in case someone gets creative and tries to recover the information. I highly suggest that you either disassemble it nicely with torques screw drivers (most of them use torques), and trash the plates inside, or be create in how to smash the entire drive until it's broken and flat. If you do decide to dissect it gracefully, the magnets inside are super strong and are great for hanging calendars and heavier items from metal cabinets. Data security and privacy is such an important topic, always treat your media appropriately as to reduce your risk of passing on private information mistakenly! Ken Dennis
MORE RESOURCES: TOP 10 personal tech and gadgets of 2024 Designboom Can Using a Dumber Phone Cure ‘Brain Rot’? The New York Times The Latest Personal Tech at CES 2025- The Accounting Technology Lab Podcast - Jan. 2025 CPA Practice Advisor European biz calls for Euro tech for local people theregister.com Why a Tariff-Inflated $2,000 iPhone Is Nothing to Fear The New York Times Google wins 1-1: Judge rules ad giant broke some antitrust law theregister.com PIRG's 'Electronic Waste Graveyard' lists 100+ gadgets dumped after support vanished theregister.com Personal Enrichment Courses Wake Tech Cheaper iPhones and Pixels Are Here. They Are Pretty Good. The New York Times Resellers may be sitting on costly pile of regret after US smartphone shopping spree theregister.com How do you explain what magnetic fields do to monitors to people wearing bowling shoes? theregister.com Tech support session saved files, but probably ended a marriage theregister.com Ignorance really is bliss when you’re drowning in information theregister.com Samsung trumps USA's tariffs by making displays in Mexico, and elsewhere if needed - theregister.com Tech for Babies Is Booming. Here’s What One Parent Found Helped the Most. The New York Times How Tech Created a ‘Recipe for Loneliness’ The New York Times Tariff uncertainty looms large over budget conscious CIOs theregister.com About National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory | NIOSH Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | CDC (.gov) Top 10 Personal Gadgets For Tech-Savvy Individuals Designed To Revolutionize Their Routine Yanko Design Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough. The New York Times Tech titans hide in shadows awaiting Trump tariff threats theregister.com Fear of tariffs made the PC market great again in Q1 as vendors emptied factories to dodge price future hikes theregister.com Appeals court revives lawsuit alleging IBM bilked pensioners theregister.com User said he did nothing that explained his dead PC – does a new motherboard count? theregister.com Apple has locked me in the same monopolistic cage Microsoft's built for Windows 10 users theregister.com How to Create a Multimedia Digital Journal of Your Life The New York Times Framework guns for cheap laptops with upgradeable alternative theregister.com Tech Made Easy AARP Can You Turn Off Big Tech’s A.I. Tools? Sometimes, and Here’s How. The New York Times The Coolest Tech Gadgets We Recommend for 2025 Best Products If TikTok Is Here to Stay, What Does That Mean for Us? The New York Times Laptop makers stalled on repairability improvements theregister.com Apple’s A.I. Is Landing Soon on iPhones. Here’s What It’s Like. The New York Times Wozniak: I didn't reduce chip count for manufacturing. I wanted to prove I was clever theregister.com The passive aggression of connecting USB to PS/2 theregister.com The sound of Windows 95 about to disappoint you added to Library of Congress significant sound archive theregister.com Hisense QLED TVs are just LED TVs, lawsuit claims theregister.com HP Inc to build future products atop grave of flopped 'AI pin' theregister.com Hold my Pimms! Wimbledon turns to tech for line-ball calls theregister.com Trump tariffs forcing rethink of PC purchases stateside theregister.com The sweet Raspberry taste of success masks a missed opportunity theregister.com App stores unconvinced by Trump's TikTok ban pause, which may itself be on shaky legal ground theregister.com Google says it's rolling out fix for stricken Chromecasts theregister.com Intel pitches modular PC designs to make repairs less painful theregister.com HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback' theregister.com Why You Might Suddenly Be Following Trump on Instagram and Facebook The New York Times Coordinates of millions of smartphones feared stolen, sparking yet another lawsuit against data broker theregister.com Lenovo teases solar-powered and folding screen concept laptops theregister.com Capital One two-day outage leaves customers in free-fall theregister.com Brit watchdog probes Google's search, ads empire theregister.com This Ring on Your Finger Tracks Your Sleep. Is It Worth the Splurge? The New York Times Copilot+ PCs? Customers just aren't buying it – yet theregister.com Apple and Meta trade barbs over interoperability requests theregister.com |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
RELATED ARTICLES
Home Electronics: The Facts About Plasma TV Not so many years ago, homes across the country watched their favorite TV shows on a bulky floor model that took awhile to warm up before you could see the picture, didn't offer anything in the way of remote control manipulation and offered a washed out image on the TV's cathode ray tubehosted screen.. Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification: OSPF ASBRs Explained And Illustrated When I first started studying for my CCNP, some of the concepts of OSPF really confused me. This was especially true for the ASBR, stub areas, and total stub areas. Choosing a Portable MP3 Player: Part 1 MP3 players are everywhere! It seems that the number of makes and models in this market is growing daily, with features and capabilities intended to appeal to just about anyone shopping for one of these devices.MP3 players have been around much longer than the Apple iPod , but there is no arguing that this one device opened the market to a much larger customer base. Do Higher Digital Camera Prices Mean Better Cameras? Understanding digital camera prices makes finding the best camera value much easier. Uncovering digital cameras best buys is easier if we know what's available within various price ranges. Gain Control Over Your Screensavers With These Simple Steps We all enjoy our favorite screensavers but in the same time we all hate to see that they sometimes disturb our movies, presentations and all the things we do and do not like to be disturbed from. Just read carefully this article and you will never have this problem again. Portable Technology: Getting to Know the Treo Up until the recent past, those who wanted to take advantage of a mobile phone, data organizer, wireless e-mail with text messaging, web browsing and a digital camera had to have separate units for each. With today's technology comes the Treo - offering all of those features in one small hand-held unit. System File Checker - A Maintenance Utility System File Checker is a great utility that is typically not utilized by the average Windows XP User. What it does is scan system files that are protected by Windows File Protection (by default Windows File Protection is enabled), and it checks to make sure that the protected files have not been altered. 5 Steps to Removing PC Clutter It's hard enough as it is these days to get organized and then remain that way for weeks and months down the road. We are all very busy people, some of us with 9-5 jobs and one hour commutes, and others of us busy making our lives at home work for us, with children at tow and a variety of chores to do as well as errands to run. How to Protect your PC from Spyware in the Cyber Age Wouldn't you be shocked to find that your personal sensitive information, like files, credit card information, operating system / software and other non-disclosed data to be penetrated by unscrupulous prying eyes? Even worse.. The Benefits of the New Firefox Browser You probably heard of the new Firefox browser version 1.0 recently released by Mozilla. Compile .BAT Files into Native Windows Applications (.EXE) Since the DOS days, batch files have been one of the most convenient and immediate ways to accomplish certain tasks. Even today it's possible to find some remarkably sophisticated utilities written as command-line batch files. Things You Can Do To Speed Up Your Computer Upgrading your processor will always speed up your computer, but sometimes this will not be the best thing to do. The first thing you need to do is find out where the bottle neck is in your system. What Exactly are Screensavers? - part I After reading this good article you will know some important information about screensavers and their history. You will find out how screensavers are different from other applications and what advantages you'll have if you use them. PC Tools Youd Never Think You Need Do you use Windows standard uninstall feature? How do you migrate data from your old PC to the new one? Get some tips on amazing software you never knew existed and find out why the pros have been using them for years.Ashampoo UnInstaller SuiteThe question is, why should this be necessary at all? Why do you need a special program? Why can't you just delete an application in the same way you can delete a file? The full answer to this question could fill a book. Dynamite Comes in Small Packages - Tiny Personal Audio MP3 Players Pack Powerful Music Enjoyment MP3 players are Hot! Playing music has come a long way since the transistor radio, portable tape and CD player days. Most players are no larger than a deck of cards. Repairing A Corrupt .RAR/.ZIP Archive Step 1:Open WinRAR and browse to the folder with your .rar/. Cisco Certification: Building Your Own Home Lab, Part I CCNAs and CCNA candidates hear it all the time: â??Get some hands-on experienceâ??. From my personal experience climbing the Cisco certification ladder, I can tell you firsthand that there is no learning like hands-on learning. Your Affiliate Business - Peripherals, Software, Computers I have always been interested in computers, but in the beginning, I would not venture any further than to the software end of learning. However, learning only the software side, and knowing nothing about the hardware side, can open you up to some costly times at the shop. Linux Power Tools - Great Tools to Make System Administration Easy World War II - Germany decided to attack Poland.Poland had many great warriors. Setting File Permissions On A Unix Server File permissions are one of the strengths that the Unix world has had over it's Windows contemporaries. Permissions are a means to control access to information on a computer, on a file by file basis. ![]() |
home | site map |
© 2006 |