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February 2003 Newsletter:
Hard Drive Privacy

Besides protecting your privacy online, home computer users need to protect the privacy of their computer hard drive. This has been in the news lately.

Many home computer Windows^TM users believe that when they delete a file, folder, or email; or empty their recycle bin, the deleted information is no longer on their hard drive. This is not true. 'Undelete' programs can be effective to retrieve information thought to be gone because 'deleting' removes the reference to the file, folder, or email. It does not make the file, folder or email unavailable if someone knows how and where to look unless you use a wiper utility on the computer that you currently use (such as Cyberscrub). Many home computers have foreign information stored in them. 'Foreign information' is files that have been placed or installed without the computer owners' or users' permission. Examples can be the pornographic spam in your email or the unknown user allowed access without your knowledge or consent. Wiper utilities add an extra layer of security to your computer and online privacy.

Many persons or companies believe that simply deleting user information, files and folders or even formatting computers before they sell, replace or return leased computers makes their information unavailable to the next computer user. This is not true. Every so often you'll hear in the news about a company not protecting customers, patients, or consumers because they left information on the hard drives before they sold, trashed, or donated their previous computer systems. Unfortunately, these companies do not yet fully realize the importance of scrubber utilities (such as cyberCide^TM). Using a scrubber utility is comparable to a paper shredder - the information is so disfigured (overwritten many, many times) that it can not be identified and is gone for all purposes. Formatting the drive does not accomplish this.