SillyDog701

[allen-uk]

Later in the year, I want to finally bite the bullet and put my G3 out to grass.

I know that if I really want to, I could take the hard-drive outside and hit it with a large hammer, but I'd rather wipe it so that the whole machine could be used by someone else.

My problem is that given the prevelance of identity-theft in the UK, I am worried that a simple re-format won't really wipe the data.

Is there a good way, without the big hammer? Supposing I formatted it a dozen times - would that do the job?

Thanks.

Allen, London. G3, beige, OS 8.6

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[Don_HH2K]

You can fully reformat (not a "Quick Format" or anything similar) the drive a couple of times, and give whoever's trying to read the drive a hard time doing so.

Mac OS X's installer CD has an option to erase your hard drive using the "Gutmann method" (I'm not sure what it calls it; it should be similar), which writes over data 35 times using different algorithms. If you're that paranoid about the idea of data theft, and if you can find an OS X installer disk lying around (you don't need to install OS X to use Disk Utility to the best of my knowledge), then this should make sure you don't have to worry.

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[allen-uk]

Thanks Don.

As it happens, the OSX discs I recently got with my iMac didn't work with my old G3.

So, given that I am still mildly paranoid about identity and data theft, what I did was:

a) switched start-up disc to an 8.6 CD;

b) initialised the hard-drive, half-a-dozen times;

c) saved a massive Photoshop file to disc until the hard-drive was getting on for full (only a 4gb drive, so didn't take that long), then deleted them and emptied the bin (trying to make any remaining data as unreadable as possible).

Apart from government agencies, would your average computer-savvy thief be able to extract anything useful, do you think?

Allen.

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[Don_HH2K]

It sounds like whatever data had originally been on the drive has probably been overwritten such that a thief would have a considerably hard time (if even a possibility) of reading it.

It's good to keep in mind that simply moving a file to your Trash and then emptying it doesn't actually delete the file. Instead the pointer to it just gets dumped, so the data's still there and just not accounted for. On top of that I doubt anybody's going to care for a giant Photoshop file.

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[allen-uk]

Just for the archive:

one better way on OS8 is to use the 'Options' that come up when you go to initialise a drive. You can choose 'Low Level Format', which takes HOURS, and also 'Zero All Data', similarly long – as opposed to the ordinary initialisation which takes about 2 minutes.

A side issue, but one that puzzles me:

If you take a file called, for example 'Security', and save a NEW file as 'Security', with garbage as its content, does the original content get fully deleted by the overwriting process?

Allen.

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[Don_HH2K]

If you take a file called, for example 'Security', and save a NEW file as 'Security', with garbage as its content, does the original content get fully deleted by the overwriting process?

There's a 99.9% chance that wouldn't work. The 0.01% would be in the case that the new "Security" file is in the exact same place (physically, not in the folder structure) on the drive as the old one. Otherwise you'd just end up with two "Security" files: the deleted one, and the new one.

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[allen-uk]

Okay Don, thanks as usual for that.

So, without going down the road of low-level or zero-data formatting, is there any way of rendering a previously-saved file unusable, i.e. unrecoverable?

The old G3 has gone, hopefully to a good home. On my Intel iMac, OSX (10.4.9) I've got an option called 'Secure empty trash'. Does this do what it says?

Ta.
Allen.

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[Antony]

The old G3 has gone, hopefully to a good home. On my Intel iMac, OSX (10.4.9) I've got an option called 'Secure empty trash'. Does this do what it says?

I will jump the queue, although Don_HH2K is free to correct me.

Firstly, all options and labels in Mac OS X is written in human understandable language. It is not the geeky Linux or Microsoft Windows.

Secure Empty Trash does what it says. Secure Empty Trash prevents special data-recovery software to recover the data. However, it will take a very long time to do so. It is recommended only used for deleting sensitive information such as your identity. For average files, it is a bit impractical to do so for average computer users (sans extremists).

For more information on this, please see Mac 101 (Apple.com).

Further, according to an interview with FBI, police and the government agencies (I assume US) simply do NOT know how to forensic Mac hard disks. They are pretty good on Windows machines and to a slightly lessor degree on UNIX/Linux-based machines, but not Mac. In other words, do not worry that much about your deleted data being recovered.

P.S. have you had any chance to test out [sdt=13070]this Automator Action[/sdt] I made?

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[allen-uk]

Hello Antony.

Unfortunately (fortunately?) it is no longer the authorities that bother me in regard to the security of my data, but wogues and vagabonds who are out to steal my identity (or credit card details).

I suspect that those, often located in places like Nigeria or Moscow, are probably better at it than the government agencies.....


Allen.

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[allen-uk]

And no, not tried your Automatic Action (man) yet, but I have got it on my list of things to do, so promise it will get done!!


Allen.

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[Antony]

c) saved a massive Photoshop file to disc until the hard-drive was getting on for full (only a 4gb drive, so didn't take that long), then deleted them and emptied the bin (trying to make any remaining data as unreadable as possible).

If you managed to make the harddisk almost full, empty it, and putting new large files (Photoshop files) again, and fill it up again, most user-(easily)-accessible space should be wiped.

As for not-so-easily accessible space (cache etc), do a format, and re-install the OS a few times should do the trick mostly. (Try to vary your installation, e.g. some with full and some with basic components only, and if you have different versions of OS, try install them as well.)

It is unlikely those 'wogues and vagabonds' would do a in-depth forensic (i.e. physical hardware level), a quick data recovery software is unlikely to find out the old data that has been rewritten by something else. Hence, "Secure Empty" by writing 1's and 0's multiple times is unnecessary in my opinion.

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[allen-uk]

Correction.

Yes, I now have tried the Sepialise invention, and it does add something extra to plain b&w photos.

I hope it makes you rich and famous (or whatever else you have in mind!)


Allen.

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