 |
Tip 10: Learn To Safely Dispose Of Personal ComputersAs the modern world advances and becomes ever more technologically advanced how we all deal with and dispose of personal computers and information is vital. To give an example, if you needed to throw away a filing cabinet that contained all your old paperwork, bank statements, pay slips and the like, would you throw the cabinet way full? We would all think that anyone who drives to the local municipal land fill site and throws away a cabinet full of paperwork to be mad. Insane! But what is the difference between that and throwing away a personal computer which has not had the hard disk wiped clean or removed? The "finder" of an old computer would need to be able to resurrect it and perhaps use a few basic data retrieval techniques. But once done, they would have an incredible record of sensitive personal information. This information might include bank details and passwords, investment information, monthly payments, hobbies, sexual preferences, photographs - or worse, compromising photographs! - and much more. It could be a blackmailer or identity thief's dream come true. And the information was just "thrown away"... This is why it is so important to destroy or wipe hard disks and hard drives before discarding the computer. There are several ways that this can be achieved. Firstly, it is possible to use magnetism to wipe the files. To do this, the pc will need to be partly dismantled and a fairly strong magnet required. By holding the magnet next to the hard disk for perhaps one minute or so, as the electricity supply is switched on, large amounts of the disk will be wiped. If it is not wiped, the disk will almost certainly not be able to run, which will achieve the same thing - unless you are being pursued by an incredibly sophisticated individual. This is called degaussing or erasure. There are apparently professional tools for doing this, but your author has been assured that a strong magnet should be able to do a decent job. This process takes advantage of the way data is stored in magnetic fields. The data forms magnetic domains where information is all alligned in the same direction as the applied magnetic field. The magnet disrupts these domains and thus makes the information unrecoverable. Alternatively, the hard drive needs to be physically destroyed. This means that it needs to be removed from the computer and attacked until it is unusable. Your author has done this on an old home computer and can confirm that it is actually difficult to achieve. It may come as a surprise - as it did to me - that a hard disk is NOT soft. In fact, simply hitting one with a hammer a few times may not even create a dent. This means that ideally a vice, pliers and possibly tin snips will be required to break portions of the disk apart and generally deface it. It is also possible to purchase programs which "wipe a hard disk". We have not had any experience with these products and so cannot recommend one at this time. However, it is clearly an option worth investigation. Before we leave this section, consider this: Some years ago I read about the way GCHQ disposes of used hard drives. GCHQ is the UK government's information and listening branch and is based in Cheltenham, England. I can't recall the name of the book, but it was in the public domain. They monitor the communications of terrorists, other governments, organised crime and other things that it is probably best not to think about. Clearly, the information that they capture and store is highly sensitive. Apparently, to dispose of hard drives, they have the drive ground down mechanically into dust. Then the dust has an acid filtered through it. Then the resulting gloop is buried underground in a concrete storage facility at a secret location on government property! Your data might not be that sensitive, and you shouldn't take such precautions, but it almost certainly needs some sort of genuine disposal. Take the matter seriously. To read about other indentity theft prevention tips, please visit the following pages:
|