computerworld.com— Not only did the drives have sensitive corporate e-mail and financial data, but they also included one guy's history with a foot fetish.
Feb 10, 2009View in Crawl 4
O no, put them into a shared folder and leave your wifi open for neighbors. You know, "secure my wireless so my neighbors don't get my stuff".
Two things jumped out at me:"Kessler's engineers had to use special forensics software to retrieve data from some of the hard drives" and "Kessler said his company specifically avoided buying drives whose sellers indicated that the drives had been erased."So the headline noting 40% is really inaccurate.
It can still be done. If you shred a piece of paper, even 4 or five times, someone with a LOT of patience (and sellotape!) would be able to piece it back together if they really wanted to. Someone with government-grade equipment and a lot of talent and time would be able to recover any wiped or erased data from a HD. It's been done. Granted, it becomes less and less probable the more precautions you take, but ultimately the only completely reliable way to make sure it's gone forever is to destroy the platter physically.
Okay so 40 out of 100 ebayers do not know how to erase their hard drives, but what does it say about the people who go diggin around other peoples data? atleast 40 out of 100 ebayers are criminal thieves then.
allthingsthatflyFeb 11, 2009
O no, put them into a shared folder and leave your wifi open for neighbors. You know, "secure my wireless so my neighbors don't get my stuff".
vikramjbFeb 11, 2009
data i guess :O
williewendelFeb 11, 2009
Two things jumped out at me:"Kessler's engineers had to use special forensics software to retrieve data from some of the hard drives" and "Kessler said his company specifically avoided buying drives whose sellers indicated that the drives had been erased."So the headline noting 40% is really inaccurate.
carrtoonistFeb 11, 2009
Agreed, by the time one of my old drives is not longer useful to me it is far to obsolete to bother selling.
kitsuaFeb 11, 2009
It can still be done. If you shred a piece of paper, even 4 or five times, someone with a LOT of patience (and sellotape!) would be able to piece it back together if they really wanted to. Someone with government-grade equipment and a lot of talent and time would be able to recover any wiped or erased data from a HD. It's been done. Granted, it becomes less and less probable the more precautions you take, but ultimately the only completely reliable way to make sure it's gone forever is to destroy the platter physically.
Closed AccountFeb 12, 2009
Probably the best place to find personal data.... Trash cans and computer palette sales.
s0nicfreakFeb 12, 2009
I don't see any other reason to buy a used hd off ebay.
rocketnzFeb 19, 2009
If you don't have a life, yes.
my10centMay 2, 2009
Okay so 40 out of 100 ebayers do not know how to erase their hard drives, but what does it say about the people who go diggin around other peoples data? atleast 40 out of 100 ebayers are criminal thieves then.