1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:03,000 Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 2 00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:08,920 Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 3 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:17,880 Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 4 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:20,680 Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polett and 5 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 6 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:26,480 Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 7 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:28,120 Speaker 1: I don't know if you've got the whole picture, but 8 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:33,480 Speaker 1: he's not exactly working at all Thrusters. We still haven't 9 00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,160 Speaker 1: started receiving mail about where I get these quotes from, 10 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:38,280 Speaker 1: so I'm curious to hear once those started coming in. 11 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:40,720 Speaker 1: Actually I'm sure I'll be buried under an avalanche. But 12 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:50,040 Speaker 1: that leads me to a little actual listener mail. This 13 00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,879 Speaker 1: mail comes from Griffin. So, first of all, Griffin, you 14 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:57,200 Speaker 1: have a really cool name, and here is the mail. Hi, 15 00:00:57,280 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 1: I just wanted to send you a note about deleting 16 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:02,560 Speaker 1: files on a computer. Your recent data recovery podcasts correctly 17 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:04,640 Speaker 1: mentioned that when you delete a file or empty the 18 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:07,800 Speaker 1: trash on your computer, it really just deletes the pointers 19 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:11,160 Speaker 1: and the data is still there. Sometimes. However, both Mac 20 00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:15,160 Speaker 1: os ten and Windows XP have newer and newer versions 21 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:18,880 Speaker 1: have easy to use secure erase features. If you turn 22 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:21,679 Speaker 1: these on or run a secure a race free space feature, 23 00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:26,160 Speaker 1: it will actually overwrite the deleted files space with zeros. 24 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:30,080 Speaker 1: Your os can't find it anymore no matter what. Even so, 25 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:32,200 Speaker 1: the U. S. Department of Defense prescribes that this be 26 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,520 Speaker 1: done seven times before it is considered safe, and even 27 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:38,560 Speaker 1: then there are higher specifications for safe deleting without destroying 28 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:41,040 Speaker 1: the physical media. There are also software available that can 29 00:01:41,080 --> 00:01:44,160 Speaker 1: cause physical damage to a drive and its platters using 30 00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:48,040 Speaker 1: things like vibrations caused by repeated looping instructions. Software can 31 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:50,840 Speaker 1: make a drive head shatter or heat up the drive platter. 32 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:53,720 Speaker 1: Fun huh. Anyway, just wanted to share some additional knowledge 33 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:56,440 Speaker 1: with you. Hope your summer is as great as mine. Well, 34 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:57,960 Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Griffin. We're actually going to do a 35 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:01,360 Speaker 1: podcast about permanently delete being files because we had several 36 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:03,360 Speaker 1: people ask us about that after we did our data 37 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:07,440 Speaker 1: recovery podcast and you've kind of covered some of the basics. Uh. Yes, 38 00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:10,440 Speaker 1: when you delete a file, what you're really doing is 39 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:14,600 Speaker 1: deleting a pointer to that data, right, Because if you 40 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:17,400 Speaker 1: just drag a file to your recycled band or trash 41 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:21,200 Speaker 1: can and tell it to delete it. It, you know, 42 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: gets it off of your hard drive, and and basically 43 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:27,280 Speaker 1: when it removes the pointers, it's making that space available 44 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:31,680 Speaker 1: to be written over again. But typically if if all 45 00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: you're doing is just deleting it under the normal circumstances, Um, 46 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,720 Speaker 1: I will explain why I say that. In a moment. Um, 47 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:41,800 Speaker 1: all you're doing is saying, yes, you can go ahead 48 00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:45,320 Speaker 1: and take these two megabytes or whatever, and next time 49 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,839 Speaker 1: you need space, feel free to go ahead and write 50 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:49,640 Speaker 1: over this, because I don't need that anymore. But it 51 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:54,880 Speaker 1: does not actually remove the file completely from your hard drive. Right. So, 52 00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:58,359 Speaker 1: in other words, if you delete something, then it may 53 00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:02,760 Speaker 1: be possible to retrieve it using data retrieval software. Delete 54 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,920 Speaker 1: software essentially is what it's usually referred to as, which 55 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:08,440 Speaker 1: is really useful. If you go, oh, no, I can't 56 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:10,440 Speaker 1: believe I just deleted that. Yeah, I can't believe it. 57 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:14,520 Speaker 1: Sometime my term paper. I mean I've accidently deleted articles. 58 00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:17,760 Speaker 1: I've done that. Yes, I've accidentally deleted articles when I 59 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,959 Speaker 1: got angry. Um no, that's a joke. Please don't send 60 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Speaker 1: anyone to me. Uh the Yeah, So, if you delete 61 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,560 Speaker 1: something by accident, there are ways to retrieve it, assuming 62 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: you haven't, you know, downloaded new information and had that 63 00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:35,800 Speaker 1: that those old files overwritten by your computer. Uh. And 64 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:38,280 Speaker 1: if you remember our podcast about hard drives and how 65 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:42,840 Speaker 1: hard drives save information to the physical media, you'll remember 66 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,680 Speaker 1: they don't necessarily do it sequentially. Actually, platter based ones 67 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,440 Speaker 1: don't do it sequentially at all, at least not in 68 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:52,800 Speaker 1: most file systems. Right. Yeah, we did mention that older 69 00:03:52,880 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 1: DOS versions do, like the ones that were used by NASA, 70 00:03:55,720 --> 00:04:00,000 Speaker 1: do save it sequentially. But in your average hard drive system, 71 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:04,480 Speaker 1: your data is being saved willingly in a way that 72 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:08,800 Speaker 1: kind of sort of makes sense, but it's not necessarily sequential. 73 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:11,640 Speaker 1: So when you over when you're saving you data, there's 74 00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:14,600 Speaker 1: no guarantee that you're actually overwriting old files. You may 75 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:18,159 Speaker 1: be saving that too unoccupied space on your hard drive. 76 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,080 Speaker 1: So uh, it may even be that something that you 77 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:25,560 Speaker 1: deleted months ago is still sitting on your computer. That's true, 78 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:28,960 Speaker 1: And this is important because whereas a few weeks ago 79 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:32,320 Speaker 1: we were talking about how you can save files that 80 00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 1: have been seemingly deleted from your computer, let's say you 81 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:41,760 Speaker 1: actually want to make sure that something is gone for good. 82 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:45,159 Speaker 1: For example, you're selling your computer to someone else, or 83 00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:47,720 Speaker 1: or donating it to to a charity, for example, for 84 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:50,800 Speaker 1: an older machine, and you think, wow, you know all 85 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:54,599 Speaker 1: those tax files I had on here, I'll just lead them. Well, 86 00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: if you just to lead them, they're not gonna be 87 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,640 Speaker 1: really gone. And it is possible that someone who is 88 00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:05,280 Speaker 1: enterprising enough can go in and get very sensitive information 89 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:07,839 Speaker 1: such as here in the United States, your social security 90 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:11,680 Speaker 1: number or something else that could be used to steal 91 00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:15,000 Speaker 1: your identity. So let's say that let's say that you're 92 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:18,680 Speaker 1: the I T head of a government office. Now, the 93 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,160 Speaker 1: information that's on the computers in your department may be 94 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:25,440 Speaker 1: extremely sensitive. In fact, some may be uh related to 95 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:29,359 Speaker 1: to national security. And so it's of utmost importance that 96 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,160 Speaker 1: you make sure that that data is completely destroyed when 97 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:35,960 Speaker 1: you are going to get rid of an old machine. Um. 98 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:39,760 Speaker 1: And so it becomes really important to know what's the 99 00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:45,320 Speaker 1: process for deleting these files. Uh. So you wanna you 100 00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:47,799 Speaker 1: want to get rid of something, you want to overwrite 101 00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:51,599 Speaker 1: that data. You don't want to just um, just assume 102 00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: that when you delete something that's gone, how do you 103 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 1: overwrite a file a specific file, Well, it depends on 104 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:03,640 Speaker 1: the computer system that you're using. This is true. UM, 105 00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:06,960 Speaker 1: you know that what we were talking about earlier. Yes, 106 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,640 Speaker 1: the U for example, the Macintosh operating system with which 107 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:13,280 Speaker 1: I'm probably a little bit more familiar than Windows UM, 108 00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:16,320 Speaker 1: although I've used Windows for many years now. UM actually 109 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:19,680 Speaker 1: has an option UM in the in the file menu 110 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:22,520 Speaker 1: when you're looking at the at the trash to you 111 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,240 Speaker 1: have the option of a racing or emptying your trash 112 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,000 Speaker 1: or secure empty trash, which is basically not only does 113 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 1: it UM delete the files on those sectors on the 114 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: hard drive, but it also overwrites them with ones and 115 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:42,120 Speaker 1: zeros multiple times in order to you know, obliterate those files. 116 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:46,920 Speaker 1: So it's it's going ahead and writing information, uh, you know, 117 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:50,919 Speaker 1: basically gibberish information to those sectors in an attempt to 118 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:53,599 Speaker 1: completely get rid of it. You can, and you can, 119 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:56,120 Speaker 1: as we were mentioning before, to do that in other 120 00:06:56,160 --> 00:07:00,400 Speaker 1: operating systems. Yeah, in Linux, if you're if you're using Lenox, 121 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:05,800 Speaker 1: most distroys of Lenox have a shred command, and so 122 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:09,200 Speaker 1: your shred command shredding is it's essentially what it sounds 123 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:12,240 Speaker 1: like when you're you're physically shredding a document. The ideas 124 00:07:12,280 --> 00:07:15,640 Speaker 1: that it's shredding the digital version. And again what it 125 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,840 Speaker 1: does is it it not only deletes the information from 126 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:21,160 Speaker 1: your hard drive, but overwrites it for you. And you 127 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:24,160 Speaker 1: can even adjust the number of times it it passes 128 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:28,400 Speaker 1: that information and overwrites it using various command line functions, 129 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:31,640 Speaker 1: so you could just overwrite at once, or you could 130 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:35,520 Speaker 1: set that overwrite number to a much higher number like 131 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,760 Speaker 1: seven or seven times. Is the Department of Defenses UH 132 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:43,960 Speaker 1: basic rule of thumb which Griffin mentioned. Um, there's also 133 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:50,440 Speaker 1: another approach called the Gutman method, Yes, which Gutman is UH. 134 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:55,560 Speaker 1: It's well, it's it's named after a technology expert who 135 00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:00,560 Speaker 1: came up with thirty five different ways to overwrite UH data. 136 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,880 Speaker 1: Since then, it's his method has been kind of misinterpreted 137 00:08:05,920 --> 00:08:08,680 Speaker 1: to mean that you need to overwrite data thirty five 138 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:12,600 Speaker 1: times to really obliterate it. That's kind of a misconception. 139 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:14,720 Speaker 1: That's not really what Gutman was saying, And in fact, 140 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:18,400 Speaker 1: Gutman u in Peter Gutman, I should say, it was 141 00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:22,520 Speaker 1: a paper called Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and 142 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:25,560 Speaker 1: Solid state Memory that was the thing that kind of 143 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,000 Speaker 1: gave birth to this whole thirty five passes to truly 144 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:31,640 Speaker 1: erase the data so that you don't have to worry 145 00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:35,920 Speaker 1: about data recovery specialists getting hold of it. Um that 146 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,040 Speaker 1: he He later wrote an addendum to that, an epilogue 147 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:44,280 Speaker 1: to the paper, which essentially said that two passes of 148 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:49,280 Speaker 1: random data should be enough to obliterate information. Uh. Some 149 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:52,920 Speaker 1: people suggest more because of the fear that future data 150 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,920 Speaker 1: recovery strategies will be able to get past that. There's 151 00:08:56,960 --> 00:08:59,680 Speaker 1: also the possibility some people think that there may be 152 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:04,280 Speaker 1: a stability that because because it's a magnetic storage um 153 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:10,160 Speaker 1: uh media the classic hard drives at any rate, it's 154 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:17,040 Speaker 1: possible that empty sectors could have their bits aligned magnetically 155 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:20,880 Speaker 1: with other sectors. So even if you've overwritten one thing, 156 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:24,040 Speaker 1: there may be a trace ghost element of that old 157 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:28,880 Speaker 1: data on an empty sector, which theoretically you could detect 158 00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:34,320 Speaker 1: if you had an electron telescope. Yeah that that kind 159 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:39,280 Speaker 1: of detection requires a certain amount of funding and expertise 160 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:44,560 Speaker 1: and patients. Um. The average consumer does probably does not 161 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:46,960 Speaker 1: need to worry about someone going after his or her 162 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:50,520 Speaker 1: computer with an electron microscope. It's just not gonna happen. 163 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,280 Speaker 1: And uh And some experts will tell you now, among 164 00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:59,080 Speaker 1: them Craig Wright Dave Kleiman and Shyam Sundar that overwriting 165 00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:02,560 Speaker 1: hard drive really you only need to do it once 166 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:07,480 Speaker 1: and that is enough because it will obliterate whatever the 167 00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:11,000 Speaker 1: file was and and it won't. And while people have 168 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,440 Speaker 1: said that there are data recovery ways of getting past that, 169 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:19,079 Speaker 1: they say that the way that we store information magnetically, Now, uh, 170 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:21,679 Speaker 1: that's not really the case. That this whole seven pass 171 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:24,160 Speaker 1: this thing and thirty five pass this thing. These are 172 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:28,240 Speaker 1: all based on misconceptions and are really overkill. That being said, 173 00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,920 Speaker 1: it really doesn't hurt you to over to overwrite multiple times. 174 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:37,080 Speaker 1: Another another method that people, some people have been using, 175 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,360 Speaker 1: and I don't know if you encountered this in your 176 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:43,560 Speaker 1: research or not, Jonathan, encrypted e racing. Yes, actually I 177 00:10:43,559 --> 00:10:46,480 Speaker 1: saw a cool one called secure delete. This was a 178 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:50,160 Speaker 1: program which actually encrypts your file before you delete it 179 00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:53,720 Speaker 1: and overwrite it, so that should someone have the ability 180 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:56,720 Speaker 1: to recover that data, they're going to recover an encrypted file. 181 00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:01,320 Speaker 1: And encryption, if you are not familiar, basically is a 182 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:05,120 Speaker 1: way of encoding the file. UM. If they wanted to 183 00:11:05,160 --> 00:11:07,960 Speaker 1: try to open it, they would be asked for a 184 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,480 Speaker 1: pass key UM and it could be something I mean 185 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,360 Speaker 1: really obnoxious or I don't even know if do you 186 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:20,760 Speaker 1: know if secure delete um actually tells the user what 187 00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:22,839 Speaker 1: the code is, so it's encrypted with a key that 188 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:25,559 Speaker 1: no one knows. Yeah, it's like it's like you've been 189 00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:29,240 Speaker 1: given a coded message but no key to to decode it. 190 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:31,360 Speaker 1: So that's I mean, that's the whole point. That's what 191 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:33,680 Speaker 1: makes it secure is if it if it did somehow 192 00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:36,720 Speaker 1: provide you that key, then you would be able to 193 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,000 Speaker 1: decode the message and get back to the original file structure. 194 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:44,200 Speaker 1: But by keeping the key a secret, then it's out 195 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:47,160 Speaker 1: of an extra level of security. Now, so so you 196 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:51,800 Speaker 1: would have to be able to one retrieve the overwritten file, 197 00:11:52,160 --> 00:11:54,840 Speaker 1: which is then encrypted, and then to break the encryption 198 00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:57,600 Speaker 1: to get to the original file, which is I mean 199 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:03,160 Speaker 1: that's this is like like major secret service kind of 200 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:08,320 Speaker 1: stuff that that confounds really really smart people as opposed 201 00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:11,960 Speaker 1: to people like me. I'm just I'm just smart. I'm 202 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,600 Speaker 1: not really really smart because I use terms like really 203 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:22,400 Speaker 1: really smart. Um. All right, then, well, um, but those 204 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,040 Speaker 1: are for individual files. Should we talk about ways to 205 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:27,400 Speaker 1: uh if you want to just go ahead and wipe 206 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:30,880 Speaker 1: the entire drive clean? Yeah, because if this is a 207 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:34,400 Speaker 1: good using these these methods are are good for Oh 208 00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:36,600 Speaker 1: and yeah, we didn't really mention it, but yeah, Windows 209 00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:39,040 Speaker 1: has it has their own They have their own their 210 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:41,080 Speaker 1: own programs as well, and some of those are like 211 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:44,280 Speaker 1: Griffins that are incorporated into the OS. But they are 212 00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:48,160 Speaker 1: also products that you can purchase that will allow you 213 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:51,000 Speaker 1: to do this kind of thing, like BC wipe allows 214 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:55,360 Speaker 1: you to delete an overwrite individual files. Blanco file shredder 215 00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:57,359 Speaker 1: lets you do that. It also lets you do folders, 216 00:12:57,400 --> 00:12:58,880 Speaker 1: so you don't have to do it file by file. 217 00:12:58,920 --> 00:13:02,520 Speaker 1: You can do an entire folder you want to um 218 00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:04,240 Speaker 1: and then there are there are a few others. There's 219 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:06,440 Speaker 1: a race your hard Drive dot com which uses the 220 00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:12,760 Speaker 1: d D method of racing doing seven passes. Department of Defense. Yes, 221 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,520 Speaker 1: thank you, Department of Defense. I'm we're on really good terms, 222 00:13:16,559 --> 00:13:20,640 Speaker 1: so I just call him d D sometimes Dodd anyway. 223 00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:25,360 Speaker 1: So yeah, there are also solutions for PCs. Now, if 224 00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:28,280 Speaker 1: you don't if what you want to do is wipe 225 00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:31,880 Speaker 1: the entire drive, because what you're doing is like what 226 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:33,959 Speaker 1: was saying, you want to get rid of your computer 227 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,080 Speaker 1: or perhaps you want to repurpose it or whatever, and 228 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:40,559 Speaker 1: you don't want whatever was on that computer to ever 229 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:44,400 Speaker 1: fall into someone else's hands. Um, yeah, you can, you can. Actually, 230 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:47,839 Speaker 1: there's several different methods of wiping everything off your hard 231 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:52,400 Speaker 1: drive and overwriting it so that, um, so that nothing remains. 232 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:56,480 Speaker 1: And some of those are again, uh, commercial products like 233 00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:59,600 Speaker 1: killed disk is one. You can purchase killed disk and 234 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:03,240 Speaker 1: what it'll will do is it'll it'll erase and overwrite 235 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:07,240 Speaker 1: the dear hard drive, um multiple times, I think. And 236 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:09,480 Speaker 1: there are other products that do the same sort of thing. 237 00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:13,040 Speaker 1: This is again what what the Department of Defense does 238 00:14:13,160 --> 00:14:18,120 Speaker 1: if they're ever going to get rid of a machine. Now. Um, 239 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,360 Speaker 1: when we were talking earlier about Griffin's email about secure 240 00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:26,440 Speaker 1: a race, that actually is uh not really platform specific. 241 00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:30,040 Speaker 1: That's actually something that the hard drive manufacturers have been 242 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:33,440 Speaker 1: including in the firmware for the drives for a while now. 243 00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,600 Speaker 1: And basically that means that there is some some information 244 00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:40,200 Speaker 1: in the in the hard drive itself that if you 245 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,520 Speaker 1: know how to tap into that information, the drive will 246 00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:49,880 Speaker 1: go ahead and delete everything on there securely. Um. The 247 00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:52,520 Speaker 1: trick is they don't want to make that something that 248 00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:56,200 Speaker 1: you can do easily by accident. Yeah, obviously that would 249 00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:58,640 Speaker 1: be a bad thing. And this is a good time 250 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:00,960 Speaker 1: to actually mention that if you do ever need to 251 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:05,200 Speaker 1: wipe your hard drive um again, make a backup of 252 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:08,600 Speaker 1: your drive first. Uh. This kind of sounds like it's 253 00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:10,960 Speaker 1: ridiculous and that you don't want to do that. But 254 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:14,200 Speaker 1: let's say that you've deleted the stuff that you don't 255 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,520 Speaker 1: want on your drive at all, um, and whether or 256 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:20,200 Speaker 1: not that those deletions have been overwritten or whatever, that 257 00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:22,920 Speaker 1: that's kind of beside the point. If you if you 258 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:24,920 Speaker 1: make a backup of your hard drive, and then you 259 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:29,280 Speaker 1: are manually choosing which which bits of information, which files 260 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:33,040 Speaker 1: and programs you want to bring back onto your new 261 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,440 Speaker 1: device or either you're repurposed computer perhaps um, then you 262 00:15:37,480 --> 00:15:40,440 Speaker 1: can avoid pulling over the stuff that you didn't want 263 00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:43,400 Speaker 1: on there in the first place. But making a backup 264 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,920 Speaker 1: is important because once you wipe that, it wipes. Wiping 265 00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:51,200 Speaker 1: a hard drive wipes everything. It's not just your documents 266 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:54,920 Speaker 1: or your files, it's also all your programs and even 267 00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 1: your operating system. So you'll in order to make your 268 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:02,000 Speaker 1: computer useful again, you will have to load in either 269 00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:05,400 Speaker 1: copies of your old OS or a new OS. If 270 00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:08,400 Speaker 1: you want to change your machines purpose, if you want 271 00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,360 Speaker 1: to switch from a PC to a Linux based machine 272 00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:14,760 Speaker 1: for example. UM So, yeah, you gotta keep that in 273 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:17,200 Speaker 1: mind too, that when you do these wipes, it's going 274 00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,640 Speaker 1: to wipe everything, which is a good thing, as it 275 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:23,720 Speaker 1: turns out, if you want to really erase all traces 276 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:27,160 Speaker 1: of you know whatever, like again, if it's financial records 277 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:31,560 Speaker 1: or uh, corporate intellectual property, that kind of stuff, it's 278 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:37,280 Speaker 1: necessary to do that. Yes, secure race going back to 279 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:40,520 Speaker 1: that now with the work of Dr Gordon Hughes and 280 00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:43,960 Speaker 1: a group called the Center from Magnetic Recording Research at 281 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,800 Speaker 1: the University of California at San Diego and UM actually 282 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:53,440 Speaker 1: secure race is uh so thorough that the National Security 283 00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:58,920 Speaker 1: Agency and National Institute for Standards and Testing are behind 284 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:03,480 Speaker 1: using secure or a a race. Unfortunately, according to UM an 285 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:06,560 Speaker 1: article that I read by Robin Harris at ZD net, 286 00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:09,879 Speaker 1: uh the n s A stopped supporting Dr hughes Is research. 287 00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:13,639 Speaker 1: But you can still use um the secure race functionality 288 00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:18,159 Speaker 1: of your machine. Now, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you say, hey, 289 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,880 Speaker 1: they're supporting this because it doesn't work and they want 290 00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:23,280 Speaker 1: to be able to get to my data. I'm not 291 00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:25,560 Speaker 1: a conspiracy theorist, No, of course, I don't know how 292 00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:27,399 Speaker 1: you would have thought of that otherwise, But I just 293 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:30,760 Speaker 1: thought it was funny. I thought that heaving off the 294 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:33,359 Speaker 1: email like of course, that they're recommending you use this 295 00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,639 Speaker 1: because that way they can they know the secret and 296 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:38,720 Speaker 1: they can get your data. First of all, they're way 297 00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:40,840 Speaker 1: too many of us out there with computers. They can't 298 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,800 Speaker 1: be after all of us. It's just too time consuming. 299 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:45,800 Speaker 1: I mean, they don't even have the money or the 300 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:50,760 Speaker 1: man power to do that. So we just discount that immediately. Jonathan, Well, yeah, yeah, 301 00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:53,760 Speaker 1: I'm sorry to use some critical thinking. It's I know 302 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:59,360 Speaker 1: it's so irritating. Um um, go ahead, I apologize. No, No No, 303 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,280 Speaker 1: we were us starting at the same time. If you 304 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:06,840 Speaker 1: want to wipe your entire drive clean for whatever reason, uh, 305 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,159 Speaker 1: you can't really be logged into your machine when you 306 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:11,800 Speaker 1: do it. You're gonna have to boot off of a CD. 307 00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:16,440 Speaker 1: There's just no way around it, because well, yeah, you've 308 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,600 Speaker 1: got to boot off some kind of external drive source 309 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:22,920 Speaker 1: because if you are running your own computer at the time, 310 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:26,560 Speaker 1: it's gonna go put wait, I can't delete this because 311 00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,720 Speaker 1: it's running right now. So you're gonna have to to 312 00:18:30,119 --> 00:18:34,160 Speaker 1: to use some other form of disk and uh log 313 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:36,159 Speaker 1: into your machine, or you know, start your machine so 314 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:38,159 Speaker 1: that runs off the CD or the flash drive or 315 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,560 Speaker 1: an external driver. However you're doing it, a secondary drive 316 00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:44,760 Speaker 1: in the machine probably would work, um if you do 317 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:47,440 Speaker 1: it right. And uh, that way you can actually run 318 00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:50,080 Speaker 1: some of the utilities that we've been talking about, UM, 319 00:18:50,119 --> 00:18:52,360 Speaker 1: either a block or racing program or secure a race 320 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:55,800 Speaker 1: or something else. UM. And that way you can actually 321 00:18:56,480 --> 00:19:00,400 Speaker 1: you know, go ahead and write over those files, all right, Chris. Yes, 322 00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:04,800 Speaker 1: Let's say that you're super secret agent and you're deep 323 00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:08,639 Speaker 1: undercover and your cover has been blown and you know 324 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,680 Speaker 1: that they're after you, and you know that your computer 325 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,360 Speaker 1: is going to be seized. Odd. Sorry, I won't live 326 00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:18,200 Speaker 1: to see tomorrow. Right, Okay, see, great agent man, they've 327 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:20,600 Speaker 1: given you a number and taken away your name. So 328 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:24,880 Speaker 1: number seven, you've you're deep undercover and they are out 329 00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:27,840 Speaker 1: to get you. Number seven, number one is on your case. 330 00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:31,680 Speaker 1: And so you want to get rid of all your data. 331 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,720 Speaker 1: You've overwritten your hard drive, but you want to take 332 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:40,920 Speaker 1: that one extra step. What can you do to absolutely 333 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:43,560 Speaker 1: guarantee there is no way they're going to get any 334 00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:47,959 Speaker 1: data off that computer? Are you serious? I'm serious? Like 335 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,520 Speaker 1: you have overwritten it and so you've done everything electronically 336 00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:53,879 Speaker 1: that you can do to get rid of the data, 337 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,600 Speaker 1: which is that's the next step, and that's important. That's 338 00:19:56,600 --> 00:20:00,119 Speaker 1: a good first step. Yeah, if you're absolutely in, if 339 00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:01,919 Speaker 1: you're pretty sure that nobody's going to get hold of 340 00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:06,440 Speaker 1: this drive and try to pull the data from it, Uh, 341 00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:08,600 Speaker 1: then you can use these electronic methods. But if you 342 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:10,239 Speaker 1: really really want to do this, if I'm trying to 343 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,639 Speaker 1: protect what's left of my what the remaining shreds of 344 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:19,280 Speaker 1: my secret agent work, um, I am going to remove 345 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,280 Speaker 1: keeping with the secret agent motif here, I'm going to 346 00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,800 Speaker 1: remove the drive from the computer and shoot it with 347 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,880 Speaker 1: my Walter Walter PPK. Okay, so you're so you're I'm 348 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,720 Speaker 1: a secret agent, you're now a British secret agent. You 349 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,040 Speaker 1: know you didn't pick number seven and I had to 350 00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:39,200 Speaker 1: fix my Walter. Okay, but you don't really need to 351 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:41,960 Speaker 1: shoot it. You're not gonna use your baretta. You can 352 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:45,800 Speaker 1: pull that. You can pull the hard you can pull 353 00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:49,800 Speaker 1: the drive apart and take the platters and drill holes 354 00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:54,440 Speaker 1: in the platters or scratch them up with something scratchy, 355 00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: or use an industrial shredder that or work. There are 356 00:20:58,119 --> 00:21:01,400 Speaker 1: actual industrial shudders out there. Does line specifically to destroy 357 00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:06,160 Speaker 1: media like DVDs, CDs and hard drive platters. Yes, and 358 00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:07,960 Speaker 1: so all the stuff that we were telling you not 359 00:21:08,080 --> 00:21:12,359 Speaker 1: to do, and the hard drive podcast dot data with 360 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:14,639 Speaker 1: every podcast. You can do that all you want. If 361 00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:16,719 Speaker 1: you're trying to drop it, smash it, step on it, 362 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:19,080 Speaker 1: you know, grind it up. So the idea, Yeah, if 363 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:22,000 Speaker 1: you grind it up, you've pretty much guaranteed that there's 364 00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:24,200 Speaker 1: not gonna be any no one's gonna get any debt 365 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:26,480 Speaker 1: off that thing. Suppose of it in one trash, can't 366 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:28,959 Speaker 1: part of it in one trash, can go downtown and 367 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,560 Speaker 1: get rid of the rest of it. Your credit cards 368 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:34,560 Speaker 1: and uh, you know all those pictures of all those 369 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,639 Speaker 1: those film fatals that you met up with a long 370 00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:41,280 Speaker 1: while on your undercover spy Adventures on our spy Facebook profile. Yeah, 371 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,680 Speaker 1: I can't even say their names because they're way too suggestive. Okay, 372 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:47,040 Speaker 1: then well, yeah, you look at the James Bond names 373 00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,119 Speaker 1: of the women, and there are terrible, terrible shame on you, 374 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:54,480 Speaker 1: James Bond, shame on you, um at any rate. Yes, yeah, 375 00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:58,119 Speaker 1: that is the ultimate step is if if in fact 376 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:03,959 Speaker 1: you need to destroy the physical media because of some reason, 377 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:07,880 Speaker 1: you know that there is some someone's out to get 378 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,160 Speaker 1: your data and you just want to make sure it's gone. Yeah, first, 379 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:16,040 Speaker 1: electronically override everything. Always do that first. Then you can 380 00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:18,000 Speaker 1: look at your various ways of destroying it. And I've 381 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,800 Speaker 1: seen lots of different ones, like I like we mentioned before, 382 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,040 Speaker 1: I saw one that was an industrial sized drill press 383 00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,680 Speaker 1: that would drill an enormous hole through an entire hard 384 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:31,479 Speaker 1: drive box. Or you can like disassemble the box, take 385 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:33,560 Speaker 1: the platters out and destroy them. Or if it's if 386 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,200 Speaker 1: it's a solid state, then you just take a hammer 387 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,680 Speaker 1: to it, just just smash it into tiny little pieces. 388 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:42,520 Speaker 1: It's good to be a gangster. Yeah, I'm sorry that 389 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,760 Speaker 1: I heard it was hard to be a gangster, um, 390 00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,679 Speaker 1: but yeah, it's um. It's something that you're you you 391 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,399 Speaker 1: can actually do physically to to destroy the drive. And 392 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:54,200 Speaker 1: as we were talking about again, you know, they recovered 393 00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,920 Speaker 1: a hard drive, They recovered information from a hard drive 394 00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:00,600 Speaker 1: that had been recovered after the Space Shuttle crash. So 395 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,840 Speaker 1: you know, anything that you can do to eliminate this 396 00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:07,800 Speaker 1: data from the drive, you want to do and that 397 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:10,960 Speaker 1: oh we know what we didn't touch on something in betweens. 398 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,400 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, um, you know degaussing, and this is a tech. 399 00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:19,080 Speaker 1: This is has to do with a famous German mathematician 400 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,680 Speaker 1: named Carl Friedrich gauss Um. He did a lot of 401 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,679 Speaker 1: work with mathematics, but also was very interested in the 402 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:30,119 Speaker 1: Earth's magnetic field. In fact, he invented the magnetometer. But 403 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:35,480 Speaker 1: a gauss is a unit of magnetic uh um, I'm sorry, 404 00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,480 Speaker 1: I can't read magnetic conduction. See, this is what happens 405 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,040 Speaker 1: when I go back to paper. I can't read my 406 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,680 Speaker 1: own writing because I type all the time. Now. One 407 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,960 Speaker 1: gauss is the magnetic flux density required to create an 408 00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:53,480 Speaker 1: electromegna motive force of an advolt in a centimeter of anyway. Yeah, 409 00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 1: and so a unit of magnetic measurement. And basically when 410 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,080 Speaker 1: you degauss to drive, you're running magnets over it to 411 00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:04,360 Speaker 1: try to change to try to eliminate the data by 412 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,840 Speaker 1: manipulating the magnetic field on the platters because of course 413 00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:11,119 Speaker 1: hard drives are or the typical platter hard drive anyway 414 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,520 Speaker 1: is a magnetic storage medium. Yeah. Actually, um, and I 415 00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,440 Speaker 1: wanted to bring this up because it's funny. The day 416 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,399 Speaker 1: we're recording this, uh, I actually saw a message on 417 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,240 Speaker 1: Twitter about someone who is going to do an experiment 418 00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,439 Speaker 1: or wants to do an experiment with magnets and hard drives. 419 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:32,440 Speaker 1: And uh it's Patrick Norton, who's with Revision three. Um 420 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:35,280 Speaker 1: honestly of of many other shows before that as well. Yes, 421 00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,280 Speaker 1: he used to be with tech TV. Uh and uh, yeah, 422 00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:42,879 Speaker 1: Patrick Norton, whom I've met once, so Hi Patrick, Um. 423 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,920 Speaker 1: Patrick Norton is looking to be able to use a 424 00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,280 Speaker 1: really powerful natural magnet to see if it can if 425 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,200 Speaker 1: he can wipe hard drive live on tech Zilla. Okay, 426 00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,000 Speaker 1: of course there's a Revision three show now at the 427 00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,720 Speaker 1: time of this recording that hasn't happened yet. I'm sure 428 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,880 Speaker 1: by the time this podcast comes out, Uh, they will 429 00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:06,200 Speaker 1: have have shot that and uploaded it. So if if 430 00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:07,879 Speaker 1: you guys want to see some of something like this 431 00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,639 Speaker 1: happen in uh an actual life, you can go over 432 00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,720 Speaker 1: to Revision three and look at Texilla and try and 433 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:16,919 Speaker 1: see if you can find the episode where Patrick Norton 434 00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,760 Speaker 1: wipes out a hard drive with a really powerful magnet. Okay, 435 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:26,560 Speaker 1: that's that's pretty cool. Actually, what's happening today? Yeah? Today? Um, 436 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,400 Speaker 1: And just so you guys know, We don't normally talk 437 00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,679 Speaker 1: about the day that we record the podcast, but this 438 00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:35,120 Speaker 1: is Wednesday, August twenty. Yes, just to give you guys 439 00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,000 Speaker 1: a kind of a reference point if you want to 440 00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,000 Speaker 1: look up that taxilla thing. Yeah, so yeah, I can. 441 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:43,680 Speaker 1: I can attest to, uh, what will happen if you 442 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,679 Speaker 1: hold a twelve pound donut magnet up to a television screen, 443 00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:54,800 Speaker 1: and my parents, we'll also attest to uh me being grounded. 444 00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,320 Speaker 1: So if you hold up a donut magnet to the 445 00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:03,440 Speaker 1: television screen, Chris will be round it. Yes, exactly. Uh no, 446 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,000 Speaker 1: don't do it, Just don't do it, please. I just 447 00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,840 Speaker 1: you know, I'm thirty nine years old and just got free. 448 00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,240 Speaker 1: Um and that happened I was in junior high school. Wow. 449 00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:16,560 Speaker 1: Uh No. But honestly, if you use a powerful magnet 450 00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:18,840 Speaker 1: and put it right up to the hard drive that 451 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,359 Speaker 1: you have removed from your machine, it's going to do 452 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:26,080 Speaker 1: a lot to uh realign the magnetic field and structure 453 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,760 Speaker 1: of the information on those media's. Yeah. We actually talked 454 00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,359 Speaker 1: about that in the sun Spot podcast about how if 455 00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:35,760 Speaker 1: you if you do have a really powerful magnet and 456 00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,920 Speaker 1: you put it near a less powerful magnet, the less 457 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:42,440 Speaker 1: powerful magnets magnetic field will realign to the more powerful 458 00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,879 Speaker 1: magnetic magnets magnetic field. So yeah, it's just one of 459 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:50,840 Speaker 1: those neat things about magnets and uh yeah, so those 460 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,680 Speaker 1: are not good for anything that uses magnetism as its 461 00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,879 Speaker 1: storage method, that is correct. So so yeah, that's another 462 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,160 Speaker 1: good point, um, both in if you want to try 463 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,240 Speaker 1: and get rid of data or if you want to 464 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,840 Speaker 1: prevent that from happening. Uh yeah, it depends on whether 465 00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,800 Speaker 1: or not you know you have bagnots nearby and handy. Um. 466 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 1: So yeah, that kind of wraps up the discussion about 467 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,280 Speaker 1: permanently deleting files off your computer. Oh I have one 468 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,199 Speaker 1: other thing I should mention. Oh and I do too. Okay, 469 00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 1: do you want to go first or shall I? UM? 470 00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:22,919 Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, if you are going to 471 00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,440 Speaker 1: go so far as to take a sledgehammer to your 472 00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,399 Speaker 1: hard drive or a power drill or something else to it, 473 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,520 Speaker 1: please take safety safety precautions because you do not want 474 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,240 Speaker 1: to lodge a piece of hard drive in your eye 475 00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,719 Speaker 1: um or or worse. I mean, you could seriously get 476 00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,840 Speaker 1: hurt because once that thing busts open, it's there's gonna 477 00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,560 Speaker 1: be lots of little shards of hard drive everywhere and 478 00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,280 Speaker 1: you don't want to get hurt. So please there, please 479 00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,040 Speaker 1: take safety precautions and where eye protection if you're going 480 00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:52,920 Speaker 1: to do something like that, right, and and remember that 481 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,240 Speaker 1: there are toxic elements within computers as well, definitely, so 482 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,040 Speaker 1: lead and mercury and all sorts of other stuff. Yeah, 483 00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,680 Speaker 1: so you need time you're you're messing around with stuff 484 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,160 Speaker 1: like that. We treated it pretty lightly, but yes, there 485 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,160 Speaker 1: are there are actual possible harmful things that could happen, 486 00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,480 Speaker 1: So keep that in mind whenever you're doing anything with computers. 487 00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:14,480 Speaker 1: But the thing I wanted to mention was that we've 488 00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,000 Speaker 1: really focused on computers in this podcast, but this really 489 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,720 Speaker 1: holds true for other devices as well, because we have 490 00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,840 Speaker 1: more and more devices now that have these kind of 491 00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,960 Speaker 1: elements to them, like smartphones. Um, and so for smartphones, 492 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,680 Speaker 1: you'll have to look for specific kinds of applications or 493 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:31,440 Speaker 1: you'll have to find a way of getting into the 494 00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,680 Speaker 1: roots system of the smartphone in order to really wipe 495 00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,000 Speaker 1: it clean. But that is a big thing. I mean, 496 00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,360 Speaker 1: you don't you don't want to if you're getting rid 497 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,320 Speaker 1: of your phone, you want to wipe that phone before 498 00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,000 Speaker 1: you donated or get rid of it. Because it's going 499 00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,640 Speaker 1: to have all those contacts and things like that, especially 500 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,400 Speaker 1: if it's safe to the phone and not to say 501 00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:53,040 Speaker 1: a simcard, And the same holds true for things like 502 00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,160 Speaker 1: game consoles. The reason I bring that up is I 503 00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,720 Speaker 1: got an Xbox three sixty and my my wife purchased 504 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:01,760 Speaker 1: it for me as a present, and she she bought 505 00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,560 Speaker 1: a refurbished one, which is fine. I had no problem 506 00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 1: with that. The thing I did notice was that the 507 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,480 Speaker 1: previous owner had neglected to wipe his information off the 508 00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,800 Speaker 1: Xbox three sixty, so his Xbox Live account information was 509 00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,440 Speaker 1: still active. Now, if I were a dishonest, terrible person, 510 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,080 Speaker 1: I might try to use that information to log onto 511 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,040 Speaker 1: Xbox Live without paying for it to see if perhaps 512 00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,480 Speaker 1: it was still an active account, and that would have 513 00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,320 Speaker 1: been really dishonest and I'd be stealing essentially. Now I'm 514 00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:34,720 Speaker 1: an honest person, so I went through the trouble of 515 00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,520 Speaker 1: actually wiping that off myself. But even then I just 516 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,920 Speaker 1: did the simple delete because you know, I wasn't gonna 517 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,520 Speaker 1: I didn't worry about overwriting it. It's not my information, 518 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,840 Speaker 1: so I just deleted it the normal way. If you 519 00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,640 Speaker 1: want to delete something permanently off Xbox three sixty. That's 520 00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:53,040 Speaker 1: another podcast. So anyway, just keep that stuff in mind. 521 00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:54,960 Speaker 1: Remember that when you hit that delete key, it does 522 00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,200 Speaker 1: not necessarily go away forever. So if you're trying to 523 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 1: really delete something, take the proper ups. Be careful because 524 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,400 Speaker 1: you don't want to delete everything necessarily. Well, I mean, 525 00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,480 Speaker 1: unless you really do, which case have at it. But 526 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,000 Speaker 1: otherwise otherwise, be careful because you don't want to end 527 00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,960 Speaker 1: up making your computer into, you know, just a basic 528 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,200 Speaker 1: electronic calculator that you're gonna have to load everything back 529 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,720 Speaker 1: onto again. Uh and UH. If you have any questions 530 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:24,000 Speaker 1: or concerns, you've got any criticism, criticisms like the way 531 00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,320 Speaker 1: I say criticism, or you have suggestions for other topics, 532 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,640 Speaker 1: you can write us. 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