White House aides' e-mail records gone (for 51 of the 88 White House officials - 8-o)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 6/18/07 | Charles Babington - ap

[Political Junkie Too]

You have to also remember that Paul Sperry, in the early days of WordNetDaily, also reported that the Clinton White House intentionally downgraded the West Wing phone PBX switches to a less sophisticated model. The installed version was able to track all phone calls to the extension, but the replaced version was only able to tell which switch the call was made from.

New cover-up: 'Project PBX' -- White House changed phone software to disguise long-distance caller traffic

I wonder why?

-PJ

[Antoninus]

The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said.

Gee, now I wonder why they'd expunge ol' Kenny's emails. Probably too many funny FWDs to Mark Foley...

[3AngelaD]

Even if they are deleted, they are still SOMEWHERE on the hard drive, as many a crook has learned to his dismay. Also, the Geek Squad charges fairly steep fees for “erasing” stuff from hard drives before used computers are sold or donated.

[antiRepublicrat]

Even if they are deleted, they are still SOMEWHERE on the hard drive, as many a crook has learned to his dismay.

The basic answer is "it depends." Servers usually use arrays, which are more difficult to recover since you're searching for bits across disks. Depending on the usage, the data could have been overwritten several times already. In the end it depends on the specific case and how much time and money you're willing to spend recovering the data, and it can be a LOT, especially if you have to go the electron microscope route. There is academic research in this area to determine the wiping patterns that can best disrupt the magnetic fields, so it's getting harder.

Also, the Geek Squad charges fairly steep fees for “erasing” stuff from hard drives before used computers are sold or donated.

Funny, all they do is let a program run on your hard drive overnight. Even that isn't perfect though, although like above the time and money it would take to recover the data is insane.

May I suggest a free tool to do it yourself and save money, http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/. If you can make a boot floppy, wipe the whole thing with this http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/.

[3AngelaD]

Yes, I was thinking they might have been overwritten, but those guys have top of the line computers with huge hard drives. I am not a tech person, but I do know that I never email anything I would be ashamed to see on the front page of the Wash Post with my name on it.

[Fresh Wind]

The RNC has preserved e-mails from some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 messages sent or received by Bush's top political adviser in the White House, Karl Rove.

How many of them were Viagra ads?

[steve-b]

The RNC has preserved e-mails from some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 messages sent or received by Bush's top political adviser in the White House, Karl Rove.
How many of them were Viagra ads?

He said Karl Rove, not Bob Dole.