Selling your PC? Formatting your hard drive is not enough!

[baba]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2676461.stm

[AbuMubarak]

i was having a discussion with another techie about that same problem

they said that if that was true, your computer would never be empty if it stores all of that info, eventually you would be full of "unusable" space, which never happens. so their opinion is that this is an impossibliity

i dont know enough about these things to offer any intelligent opinion, but these days, they can find out anything they want about you anyway

johnny taliban was charged with all kinds of crimes that the fbi got off of aol or some other server, who had kept records of all of his email, for years in the past

so dont ever think that anything you do on your computer cannot be retrieved either thru your computer or thru the various servers this info goes thru to get from point a to point b

[AbuMubarak]

> Assalamo alaikum
>
> Check this out for yourself
>
> http://www.icq.com/legal/end-user-license.html
>
>
>
> Salaam
>
> Some of you might still use ICQ for chatting online.
> In case you're not
> aware, it is a software firm whose headquarters are
> in Israel. ICQ has the
> right to monitor any of your chats and use them
> against you in a court of law
> in Tel Aviv, Israel. I advise everyone using ICQ to
> discontinue use, as there
> exists a legal document which "you" have agreed to
> if you do use it. (Part of
> a news cast on Abu Dhabi television from the U.A.E
> warned of information being
> monitored and collected by Israel for intelligence
> and legal action purposes).
>
> Please don't ignore this message as one of those
> "boycott Jewish/Israeli
> Coca-Cola" emails you've probably gotten from
> someone else. The way things are
> going today in this Zionist Era, his 'might'
> actually have an impact towards
> you one day.
>
> The complete Licence Agreement is attached below.
>
> The following is one phrase from the agreement:
> If you are not a citizen of the USA, then the laws
> of the State of Israel,
> excluding its conflicts-of-law rules, shall govern
> this agreement. Please note
> that your use of the Software as well as the ICQ
> Services and Information may
> be subject to other local, state, national, and
> international laws. You
> expressly agree that exclusive jurisdiction for any
> claim or dispute with ICQ
> Inc. or relating in any way to your use of the ICQ
> Software and the ICQ
> Services and Information resides in the courts of
> Tel Aviv and you further
> agree and expressly consent to the exercise of
> personal jurisdiction in the
> courts of Tel Aviv in connection with any such
> dispute including any claim
> involving ICQ Inc. or its affiliates, subsidiaries,
> employees, contractors,
> officers, directors, telecommunication providers and
> content providers.
>
> for the complete Licence Agreement,
> website is: http://www.icq.com/legal/end-user-license.html

[sasjamal]

I did not read the Above Article:

However, I think I know what it is talking about...

When you delete something, it just marks that area as USABLE space, so it show sup as free space on your computer...

But the Data is still there, UNTIL you save data on top of it.

So when you delete files they are still there, they are just now allowed to be re-written. So when you create new files, they will go where your old files where... But until then special programs can still access it.

[baba]

Thanks for posting that Raafi. It's totally true about Mirabilis ICQ. I got rid of it years ago. If anyone hasn't uninstalled it from their system yet, do it now.

[pooya]

another real life example of this is ollie north. a little known fact about the whole so called "iran-contra" scandal of the 80's was that ollie north sent e-mail regarding it, realized he was being investigated, deleted his e-mail, not knowing that he only deleted the reference to it, and not the e-mail itself.

in windows, "deleting" a file or formating does nothing to the actual data until it is written over. there are actually utilities out there which will allow you to get long "lost" files- i've used them with some success.

in unix and unix-like os's, there is a way to format which will erase completely, however.

[Details]

the 'debug' program can be used to set all bits on your HD to 0. theres no recovering data from that. i think a magnet does the same job :)

[AbuMubarak]

can you explain the debug thing

i see that sometimes when i go to a web page, and i click yes, and the computer always freezes

[Details]

i believe a copy of debug.exe comes with all windows versions. although i am not positive .... It allows you to enter commands in hex its about 7 or 8 lines of code. try typing in 'debug low level format' into your fave search engine. you'll find lots of howto tutorials. the commands will vary depending on the types of harddrives and how they are physically set up on your computer.

it'll look something like this:

A:\>debug <enter>
-F 200 L1000 0 <enter>
-A CS:100 <enter>
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 <enter>
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 <enter>
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 <enter>
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 <enter>(80 for hd 0 or 81 for hd 1 )
xxxx:010C INT 13 <enter>
xxxx:010E INT 20 <enter>
xxxx:0110 <enter>
-g <enter>
Program terminated normally
-q<enter>

[AbuMubarak]

Originally posted by Details
i believe a copy of debug.exe comes with all windows versions. although i am not positive .... It allows you to enter commands in hex its about 7 or 8 lines of code. try typing in 'debug low level format' into your fave search engine. you'll find lots of howto tutorials. the commands will vary depending on the types of harddrives and how they are physically set up on your computer.

it'll look something like this:

A:\>debug <enter>
-F 200 L1000 0 <enter>
-A CS:100 <enter>
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 <enter>
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 <enter>
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 <enter>
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 <enter>(80 for hd 0 or 81 for hd 1 )
xxxx:010C INT 13 <enter>
xxxx:010E INT 20 <enter>
xxxx:0110 <enter>
-g <enter>
Program terminated normally
-q<enter> yeah, thanks details,

hey, check this out

GGWER REVBWGWEGWERG kjfaoifupua oafpodsuoai auopdfiua liufdau
ahhfiodu

aoudoupajd faou opaupoiudqu8err f987r n u89ue
nnnvnpouq[ fioeupqufq
oupouqiure q

and thats all i have to say about this

[Details]

Originally posted by AbuMubarak
can you explain the debug thing

i see that sometimes when i go to a web page, and i click yes, and the computer always freezes

lol ok ok i just realized you were talking about debugging a webpage ... probably javascript. sorry. thats a totally different thing from formatting your drive. you'll have to ask a java wizard bout that stuff.

[baba]

Originally posted by AbuMubarak
can you explain the debug thing

i see that sometimes when i go to a web page, and i click yes, and the computer always freezes Go to the Tools menu, click Internet Options, click Advanced, and tick 'disable script debugging'.

[baba]

Originally posted by Details
the 'debug' program can be used to set all bits on your HD to 0. theres no recovering data from that. i think a magnet does the same job :) It is still possible (though extremely difficult) to recover data after that. A powerful magnet might do a better job....

[sheik]

ASA,

If you really want to wipe the data from your hard drive, you can use PGP to do it.

PGP has a function called 'disk wipe' or something similar. It deletes the data and then goes through a number of cycles (you can specify how many) where it writes random data over that portion of the hard drive.

It's the same method used by the NSA so you can be assured it's reliable.

Fee Aman Allah

[pob]

It gets worse if those with the need to know are desperate enough, they can retrive segments of data after 30 successive overwirtes (yup you read that correct), how is this possible I hear you mutter to yourselves? Well they use a nifty bit of kit to trace the magnetic residue left on the platter (plates in your hard drive) surface. Very high tech very expensive but also very possible.

The only way to be safe would be some sorta remote mini explosive device or a sledge hammer. Encryption all that sorta stuff becomes kinda redundant when they can do this sorta thing dont 'cha think?