Where do old laptops go to die?

[shanky887614]

Get yourself a copy of DBAN and wipe your disk with that.

Virtually impossible to recover anything after that.

for dban, burn to disk put in pc and run the dod is secure enough for most people

if you are really paranoid then use the gutman method where it overwrites the data 40 times making it practically impossible to get the data off it

 

[WiffWaff]

I keep reading "virtually impossible" and "practically impossible". I found that with the hammer method it is just "impossible"... end of...

 

[Dr Rick]

Actually, it would probably be easier to recover data fragments from a hammered-up drive than from one properly overwrite-wiped. Either way, you're talking the sort of resources normally only thrown at these tasks by the security services of major nations or serious industrial espionage, and I for one have no compromising multinational accounts books or terrorist address books on my systems.

(Not unencrypted, anyway.)

 

[WiffWaff]

Actually, it would probably be easier to recover data fragments from a hammered-up drive than from one properly overwrite-wiped. Either way, you're talking the sort of resources normally only thrown at these tasks by the security services of major nations or serious industrial espionage, and I for one have no compromising multinational accounts books or terrorist address books on my systems.

(Not unencrypted, anyway.)

I'm not a techie... but I was rather expecting someone to say that. Anyway... being me, the bits of hard drive didn't get dumped together, but scattered over a number of bin deposits. So I may be safe from THE MAN a little longer.

 

[FrenchBlade]

My brother said this to me recently: "One of the main things you learn at the Digital Technology and Biometrics lab at the Forensics Institute is that you're not nearly as paranoid as you should be."

Drive encryption, etc.. it'll keep out the casual thief, but not the government.

M.

 

[WiffWaff]

My brother said this to me recently: "One of the main things you learn at the Digital Technology and Biometrics lab at the Forensics Institute is that you're not nearly as paranoid as you should be."

Drive encryption, etc.. it'll keep out the casual thief, but not the government.

M.

Not that I've got anything to hide from the Government... I'm only trying to protect my skinny bank accounts... and the Government have far more effective ways of bleeding me dry...
... but I'll take that as an endorsement of my paranoia