Consumer Reports: Wiping your old electronics clean

Local abc ^ | 12-24-2013 | Alicia Vitarelli

[Still Thinking]

My shredder will actually shred the platters.

[uncommonsense]

" Store and restaurant records, Somali cleaning crews at bank headquarters (and losers on work-release programs), the government, credit card companies who are always being attacked by hackers, etc..."

I ran software development for a company that processed over $100 billion in consumers loans a year. So I know all about data thieves. They hit you from every angle. Our data center had 1,300+ servers. When we replaced a server, we always took the drives out and smashed them before sending the server off to be "recycled" by some overseas company. Data thieves work all up and down the chain of data collection, storage, and disposal (even if they're "certified").

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[MortMan]

To be honest, I don’t replace my laptops until they are broken and unrepairable. Therefore, the hard drive (and all of my business and client data) is excess - because I ALWAYS back up the data!

[zeugma]

Yeah, that'll do it. I've found ball peen hammers are useful as well, and quite satisfying in their own way, but I've got to admit, there is something about explosives.

[zeugma]

Those of you in business, with photocopiers need to take the same care when you get rid of them. Many will have hard disks in them with far more documents that you've copied on them than you would ever believe possible. Take the drive out and destroy it. Just reformatting it is not good enough. There are several organizations that are extremely interested in data on old copiers. I think even 60 minutes did a story about it. It's on youtube if you google it.

[octex]

Thank you so much for supplying the links with pics!

Your time to do so is much appreciated!

[pa_dweller]

de nada. :^)