t e c h i e - t a l k s ::: technology at its best

I would neither go into detail about the recent sex scandals (this is a tech blog anyway) nor post any links to the pictures (I’m sure those looking for it already has copies of them in their HDD). In fact, I’m not even sure why it is made into such a big fuss? (Haven’t you watched good porno before?) So what have the recent sex scandals thought (or remind) us about general computer etiquette? This is a short, crash course to Computer etiquette 101 — protecting your personal data.

Firstly, to prevent anyone from prying into your files, protect/encrypt your data. Data protection can be done by using free or paid programs available online. Windows users can go for open-source programs like Axantum or Cypherix. Linux users on the other hand can use freely available programs in their repos and I’d personally recommend TrueCrypt. File/disk protection/encryption should be the first line of defense from any data pry-ers. Anyone who does not know the password to your disk/folder will not be able to access its contents, thus securing your first line of defense.

Secondly, contrary to popular belief, setting the Windows option to limit access of their user profile and folder only to the user himself cannot prevent one from accessing it. Although this may prevent unnecessary access from a Windows machine, be it the same machine or another machine connected to the HDD externally, a Linux OS can easily access the folder without any sweat. Just plug in the HDD into a USB port and your folder is as good as not protected at all. Thus, if you have important files that you would not want others to access, you’ll need to put in more effort into encrypting it (look at the first lesson learned).

Thirdly, when your computer fails you and you are planning to seek help from your friendly computer technician, please erase the contents of your HDD. This is especially so if you have private data (like your honeymoon video or your bank details and credit card numbers) that you would not want him to get hold of. Although some technicians have high moral standards and professionalism, there are some who love to snoop around and may catch you unexpected.

Erasing your data on your HDD should also be done when you are planning to sell them away (on Ebay or your neighbourhood junk sale). It is pretty amazing what people can do with second hand HDD and you wouldn’t want to wait till your scandalous rendezvous is released on some p0rn website! Well, unless you wouldn’t mind the extra attention and that several months of fame.

A mere reformatting of your HDD or deleting your private files may not be sufficient to prevent a successful mining of your HDD data. Even a low-level format wouldn’t guarantee it. Data can still be collected if the data miner is knowledgeable enough. However, you can make it very difficult for him/her to get your data. An erased data on a sector of a hard disk can still be recovered. However, repeatedly writing data on that sector and erasing it (several iterations would do) can ensure that your data is well dispose of. This can be done quite easily by using CMMR erase utility and DBAN on any systems. On Linux, an iterative shred command can do an erasure job of data files quite easily. Type man shred for more details on using the program.

Lastly, if you come from an organization where data is extremely valuable and secret (like the government), don’t even bother to try and erase your HDD data. My advice — physically destroy the HDD by burning it or destroying it somehow is your best bet. All the above mentioned forms of protection of data applies to common users but probably not highly secretive agencies.

Personally, I feel that protecting your own data is your personal duty. If you really have nothing to hide on your computer, you’ve wasted the last 5 minutes of your life reading this.