Erasing Your Second Brain

Why New Laws Should Be Passed Requiring Companies To Use Proper Cleansing Of

Discarded/Sold Hard Drives.

Kenneth G Brown. 1055 Section 001.

How Secure, In Fact, Is Our Personal Information?

Introduction of home computers and the internet. Followed by the convenience of shopping and

banking from home.This Modern wonder left behind digital footprints,

hidden within your computer.

Then some people figured out how to findthese footprints remotely, which were files containing what websites you had been to, and information you had entered such as passwords and credit card numbers.

To Combat Hackers, We Were Offered Internet Security.

Then came secure website purchasing,Secure banking servers,Encryption and password protected files, folders,

and hard drives.Banks and corporations offered these to get us to buy

from them, but it was only half the problem. The information was still on our personal pc’s.

Thus..Personal anti virus programs, Personal Firewalls Identity Protection

Remote Access Denied

Safe at last! Time to upgrade!New larger capacity faster hard drive!!

So you move all your cool files to new hard drive, delete old and reformate it. Clean as a whistle! Right?

Then you either sell your old hard drive, donate it, or junk it.

Dumpster Diving!Much to our surprise, the criminals have been

dreaming of this day.

They buy up or root through computer landfills for these little digital goldmines, finding access to your money or credit card numbers and sending you into financial debt while they reap the benefits.

In The Hands Of The EnemyThat’s right, our old computers and hard drives we

either junked, sold or donated, that we meticulously deleted of all information... well guess what, there was still info on there we didn’t know about!

Which means…Deleted files,Encrypted files,Password protected files,Reformatted files,Can All Be Retrieved!

Even Worse…Guess who else upgrades hard drives,

discarding or selling the old ones.BanksBusinessesMilitaryHealthcare Industries and moreAll containing your financial and personal

records along with thousands upon thousands of other peoples information.

They Have All Your Info Too!!

Recycling is Great, Except…

In the past old computers were destined for the landfill, but times have changed and these hundreds of millions of archaic machines per year, are being recycled, and resold. Imagine how many might contain thousands of improperly wiped banking or purchase records..

How Deletion WorksSo what can we do? First understand some

truths. Files can never be deleted from a hard drive

(sometimes even if physically destroyed). Deleting, emptying recycle bin, defragging,

reformatting the hard drive, none of this actually erases your files.

All it really does is reassign the sectors they are written to as available to be rewritten on with new information.

But until that occurs, those files still exist!

Deleting! We’re

Still Here!!

T h e A n s w e rFortunately, there are now companies that

specialize in wiping your hard drive.It works by assigning everything as

rewritable, then overwriting every sector on your hard drive with nonsense files or 0’s and 1’s.

It then once again sets everything to rewritable.

This is the best way to be safe, but even this can miss spots. Which is why its often done 7 to 14 times on the same hard drive just to be sure.

The Problem With The AnswerUnfortunately, it is not currently required for

any companies containing secure, private information, with security agreements, to properly wipe information from recycled, sold or donated old hard drives.

I believe this is a breach of security and privacy obligations , is unethical and irresponsible .

Something Must Be DoneThis should be illegal and strictly regulated by

the government, for the financial security of all Americans.

So far the government has created campaigns to encourage, but not enforce, proper information wiping on hard drives.

This is not enough. If our lives are to become inevitably digital, proper measures must be taken.

Works Cited Elderkin, Stephen. “Erasing data from your hard drive - permanently”. Law

Enforcement Technology Magazine. Oct 2003. Web. 06 April 2010. [http://www.whitecanyon.com/deleted-files-let-10-2003.php]

Detto. Detto Technologies. Web. 06 April 2010. [http://www.detto.com/sell-computer-bundle.php]

Marks, Paul. “Old hard drives are a goldmine for data thieves” New Science. 21 September 2007. Web. 06 April 2010. [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12675-old-hard-drives-are-a-goldmine-for-data-thieves.html]

“Hard Drive Disposal: The Overlooked Confidentiality Exposure (Asset Recovery Solutions Data Security)” IBM Global Financing. November 2003. Web. April 06 2010. [http://www-03.ibm.com/financing/pdf/us/recovery/igf4-a032.pdf]