The other day I was working with a computer at school (I'm a school technology director) that had been donated to the school by the generous folks at our town office. Turns out that it had been the Code Enforcement officer's desktop machine. How do I know? Because every single important document from the past several years was still on that computer. I could have had a field day learning all the in's and out's of our town's code violations and so forth. Alas, I took the high road, formatted the computer, and loaded a Linux distribution that I was about to begin testing. As I look back on that incident I thought about all the donated computers that are taking up space with schools and organizations around the globe. Many of these machines have never been wiped or anything. Sensitive government, company, or personal data could be lurking among these hard drives piled in the dark corners of schools and charitable organizations. Many folks trust these organizations to "erase" the data in a timely fashion, but the ugly truth is that many of these computers get passed around from one place to another...never having been erased or anything. Nervous now? You should be! Identity theft is growing rapidly in this digital age...and things like this don't help the situation. Don't get me wrong, donating your old computer to folks in need is a GOOD thing, but a little common sense and preparation can put your mind at ease and still allow you to do the right thing. If you're thinking of donating your old computer to a school, organization, or even a friend...erase EVERYTHING! Simply formatting the drive is not enough to be absolutely sure. A clever computer geek can simply use an undelete program and recover much of the data. For absolute safety...you need to break out the "digital chastity" belt...Darik's Boot and Nuke. Darik's Boot and Nuke, commonly referred to as DBAN, is a live CD with utilities to automatically wipe (securely) the contents of any hard drive that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction. DBAN is a great means to ensure that your donated computer is securely wiped of any and all data, thus preventing identity theft and letting you rest easy knowing that your old computer is completely clean. How clean? DBAN is actually good enough to meet the standards set by the US Department of Defense and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That's pretty darn safe. Planning on selling that laptop on EBay? Trust DBAN to wipe it clean and then do a fresh install of your operating system. This will allow you to be sure that all your data and personal information is removed and the laptop has a totally fresh copy of the operating system ready for the next owner. Be safe and secure while doing the right thing to help out others...check out Darik's Boot and Nuke.
Dariks' Boot and Nuke (DBAN)
0 comments:
Post a Comment