Where Does Your old PC Really Go?

XBGMER

XBGMER

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Microsoft tell the world, windows is very more security and protect your data, there is no more hacker to access your data or whatever.. full of it! but there is one severe problem, If you ditched your old pc with HDD, etc @ E-waste.. E-Waste won't deleted your whole informations, etc.. Mmm, My suggest: you better read below or check link for yourself.

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When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to exploit the loopholes by labeling junk computers "donations," leaving men like Godson to sort it out.
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“Some are from Germany and the U.K., and also from America,” he says, when asked where the equipment has come from. He sorts through them looking for working electronics that can be sold. He says that maybe 50 percent of the shipment is junk and the rest he will be able to salvage in some way.
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The drives are purchased for the equivalent of US$35.


Within minutes, he is scrolling through intimate details of people's lives, files left behind by the hard drives' original owners.

There is private financial data, too: credit card numbers, account information, records of online transactions the original owners may not have realized were even there.

“ I can get your bank numbers and I retrieve all your money from your accounts,” Messiah says. “If ever somebody gets your hard drive, he can get every information about you from the drive, no matter where it is hidden.”
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I really refuse to ditch my own HDD at garbage, E-waste, or whatever.. I rather destroy it by myself..
 
Yup, better to destroy the HDD or use FULL format the HDD, but full format take around hours to complete.

Quick format won't wrap all off.
 
XBGMER said:
Microsoft tell the world, windows is very more security and protect your data, there is no more hacker to access your data or whatever.. full of it! but there is one severe problem, If you ditched your old pc with HDD, etc @ E-waste.. E-Waste won't deleted your whole informations, etc.. Mmm, My suggest: you better read below or check link for yourself.

I really refuse to ditch my own HDD at garbage, E-waste, or whatever.. I rather destroy it by myself..
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I saw something similar on TV.

The first problem with shipping discarded computers from Europe and the States was that it added long-term hazardouis pollution to third world countries. The pollution was detrimental to the health of poor people but the businesses that shipped the electronic waste didn't care.

Now, the natives of the dump site areas are getting back at the original computer owners! :shock:
 
Wirelessly posted (Samsung Epix (i907))

Yea, if I wanna ditch a POS...which means I have to take out the hdd. I stil have the hdd from the dead eMac from Feb 2010.
 
sequoias said:
Wirelessly posted (Samsung Epix (i907))

Yea, if I wanna ditch a POS...which means I have to take out the hdd. I stil have the hdd from the dead eMac from Feb 2010.
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Yup, I have 3 old HDD from my MacBook Pro after recently upgraded to 640 GB in last week and couple of HDD will be destroyed soon since I keep other one for backup, in case if my new HDD fail.
 
Foxrac said:
or static infested area like carpet will kill HDD.
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It may make the hard drive unusable for normal use, but it won't necessarily make the data irretrievable. Hard drives from the 9/11 disaster were recovered. Although they were typically physically damaged, data was (in most cases) retrieved from the platters. That said, the techniques used in cases like this are probably beyond the capabilities of most "hackers" out there.

Personally I never throw away hard drives. I always remove them from my machines and throw away the rest.

The African guy seems like a novice though. Many of his statements are flawed.

If ever somebody gets your hard drive, he can get every information about you from the drive, no matter where it is hidden.
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This is nonsense. For example, if I never stored my address on my computer, or input it anywhere using my computer, there's no way he can retrieve it directly from the hard drive. (simply because it wasn't there in the first place) Perhaps this isn't the best example to use, because most people do input their address via their computer. But it still shows how his argument is flawed.

I'm guessing that this guy simply connects the drives up to his own computer, and uses restoration software from the internet to recover the data stored on the drive. It doesn't have a 100% success rate, but anyone can do this with very little expertise.
 
ExR said:
It may make the hard drive unusable for normal use, but it won't necessarily make the data irretrievable. Hard drives from the 9/11 disaster were recovered. Although they were typically physically damaged, data was (in most cases) retrieved from the platters. That said, the techniques used in cases like this are probably beyond the capabilities of most "hackers" out there.

Personally I never throw away hard drives. I always remove them from my machines and throw away the rest.

The African guy seems like a novice though. Many of his statements are flawed.



This is nonsense. For example, if I never stored my address on my computer, or input it anywhere using my computer, there's no way he can retrieve it directly from the hard drive. (simply because it wasn't there in the first place) Perhaps this isn't the best example to use, because most people do input their address via their computer. But it still shows how his argument is flawed.

I'm guessing that this guy simply connects the drives up to his own computer, and uses restoration software on the internet to recover the data stored on the drive. It doesn't have a 100% success rate, but anyone can do this with very little expertise.
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What about using a program such as Cyberscrub? A friend swears by it, but I dunno. Is the only sure-fire way practically explosives???
 
Tousi said:
What about putting the hard drive in a pail of water?
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I saw something on one of the real crime show where they were able to retrive some data from a laptop that was thrown in a lake. :dunno:
 
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