Computer Question

KeyserS175 · Post by **KeyserS175** » December 14th, 2007, 12:44 pm

Does anyone know of a program to wipe the history off your computer to include internet, files and personal info? I'm looking at buying a new laptop, but wanted to donate my current one and just want to make sure none of my shit is still on it.

Thanks in advance.

Glenn, MSG Ret. · December 14th, 2007, 12:52 pm

I don't know either.

The last time I sold a computer was a few years ago & I took the whole hardrive out of it & replaced it with a new (cheap) one.( still better than the original)

I was told that data on your hardrive can always be retrieved by someone who knows how even if it's wiped. As security conscious as I am I couldn't take a chance. Then again I'm paranoid at the best of times.

GSXRanger · Post by **GSXRanger** » December 14th, 2007, 1:40 pm

I use Window Washer... you can set it to "bleach" files... meaning, it overwrites many times. From what I understand... even when you "delete" a file, the image file is still there, until it is written over.

Window Washer deletes all the packets, and makes sure the files are gone. It used to claim that it was NSA approved... don't know if that is true or not.

centermass · Post by **centermass** » December 14th, 2007, 2:06 pm

http://www.analogx.com/contents/downloa ... /shred.htm

NISPOM compliant (DoD) and free.

rgrking · Post by **rgrking** » December 14th, 2007, 2:16 pm

you can fdisk it and then reinstall your core components.

centermass · Post by **centermass** » December 14th, 2007, 2:34 pm

These programs are good, but personally, I would destroy the hard drive and have them buy another one.

They are not that expensive and relatively easy to install.

ANGRYCivilian · Post by **ANGRYCivilian** » December 14th, 2007, 3:04 pm

KillDisk is a free utility that will do what you want.

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

The free version works just fine. Just put it on a bootable floppy and run it about 3 times.

EvilCouch · Post by **EvilCouch** » December 15th, 2007, 3:37 am

The reason why deleting a file doesn't remove it, is because all deleting it does is remove all mention of the file in the block tree, which permits the OS to overwrite the blocks that the file used. Overwriting the block once usually still won't obliterate the file, because magnetic store was designed from the start to be robust. The magnetic impressions on the drive platters are pretty clear and distinct. Writing over them obscures them a good bit, but it'll take several passes to write over them enough to make it impossible to tell what was originally there.

Reformatting and reinstalling your OS once isn't enough. A low-level format (I think it's called "quick format" in XP) actually does just about nothing, besides marking most of the sectors on the hard drive as being free to write on. The longer formatting option will write crap to all portions of the drive, which is a good first step, but if you're really concerned, you'll want to fill the disk with random data several times.

fdisk won't do a whole lot besides removing the partition metadata.

Programs that erase files by writing to the same portion of the disk over and over are fine for most people's use, but for military/industrial secrets there are ways around it. Physically dismantling the drives in a cleanroom and then directly reading the platters can recover a LOT of data, even after it's been written over a lot of times. HOWEVER, this takes a lot of time and a lot of money. You will not find a civilian company willing to do this for less than a couple hundred.

No program is DSS/NISPOM compliant anymore. DOD/NSA/Basically all federal agencies now requires that hard drives be degaussed or physically destroyed. Given that barely anyone has access to a degausser, but practically everyone has access to a sledge, you can guess which path most people take. (Note: smashing a hard drive with a sledge without CSA certification is also not a technically approved data sanitization method. Yes, those guys are fucking whiners.)

BruteForce · Post by **BruteForce** » December 15th, 2007, 8:48 am

Here's a good article on the subject:

Article Clicky

Bravo57 · Post by **Bravo57** » December 15th, 2007, 3:57 pm

try using a 4lb hammer.

CloakAndDagger · Post by **CloakAndDagger** » December 16th, 2007, 12:35 am

I think the issue here is "just how erased do you want it?"

While it is possible to dismantle a hard drive place the platter on a special machine, read the magnetic configuration, and reconstruct the contents-over-time of that harddrive...how likely is this to happen?

Unless you've been storing child porn, gov't for-official-use info, or industrial cutting-edge R&D on your drive, neither U.S. LEOs or foreign gov'ts are likely to be interested enough to go through that much effort to try to reconstruct a harddrive. There are much easier ways to get SSNs and credit card numbers. At any rate, if you have any of those things on your home computer "you're wrong" anyway.

For your purposes, I'd recommed a wipe+overwrite utility. I personally use Norton Utilies for this sort of thing (by Symantec, it also comes in a larger security software suite). It's a little bit pricey, but not too bad. You also have to be careful with how you use it, because it does it's magic directly on the file system. In addition to wiping individual files/folders (with overwrite), you can wipe the free space, and re-optimize your harddrive (de-fragments and physically moves files in to a better hardware access order, which also helps overwrite old file leftovers).

BruteForce · Post by **BruteForce** » December 16th, 2007, 2:43 am

CloakAndDagger wrote:For your purposes, I'd recommed a wipe+overwrite utility. I personally use Norton Utilies for this sort of thing (by Symantec, it also comes in a larger security software suite). It's a little bit pricey, but not too bad. You also have to be careful with how you use it, because it does it's magic directly on the file system. In addition to wiping individual files/folders (with overwrite), you can wipe the free space, and re-optimize your harddrive (de-fragments and physically moves files in to a better hardware access order, which also helps overwrite old file leftovers).

Agreed. I use a combination of Norton Utilities and PGPDisk. Norton provides a wipedisk utility and defragmenter (daily use). PGP provides me with an encrypted disk (and slice of disk) and also does a secure delete of each file.

EvilCouch · Post by **EvilCouch** » December 16th, 2007, 9:07 am

CloakAndDagger wrote:I think the issue here is "just how erased do you want it?"

While it is possible to dismantle a hard drive place the platter on a special machine, read the magnetic configuration, and reconstruct the contents-over-time of that harddrive...how likely is this to happen?

Unless you've been storing child porn, gov't for-official-use info, or industrial cutting-edge R&D on your drive, neither U.S. LEOs or foreign gov'ts are likely to be interested enough to go through that much effort to try to reconstruct a harddrive. There are much easier ways to get SSNs and credit card numbers.

Unless it's gotten cheaper and easier to do it, I think that it's still unlikely for stuff that's only FOUO classified. Nevertheless, if it's FOUO, it's getting the sledge, 'cause Joe likes to smash shit and Uncle Sugar's picking up the tab on the new drive, anyways. And fuck those civilians that are demanding the drive back so that they can fill out their side of the RMA paperwork.

KeyserS175 · Post by **KeyserS175** » December 16th, 2007, 10:15 am

Since I have no idea how to replace the hard drive, I think I'll try one of the programs mentioned. I'm more concerned about some of our banking info and stuff like that. Thanks for all the input.