Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Recycling PC Hardware - Good Intentions Turn Risky by li baocai

How ha your Jumper Bouncers comput been treat you these days? Doe it take you over an hour to download on song? Doe it crash everi time you have more than 3 program open? Is that singl USB port a dead give-awai to how ancient your comput actual is?

Isn't it time to throw out that piec of junk or donat it? The answer is yes, but be cautious. Your quest to find a new Pentium dual-cor processor with 2gig of RA M and a terabyt of hard drive space, mai lead you to overlook on crucial detail...just how much your old comput know about you?

Behind the Screen - What your Comput Know About You and Your Business

Comput ar an enigma to most users. The averag person know how to create, open, save, and delet a document. However, what most peopl don't know is that save a document will save it for eternity, and delet it will not actual delet it. In fact, it ha onli delet the document from visibility; out of sight and out of mind, but not out of the hard drive. The histori of the document remain intact and can be us to recov it in full, even after delet the file from the recycl bin, or conduct a full system reformat.

Without the proper tool to overwrit or encrypt the data on your computer, you open yourself up to problem that aris from on gener act of recycl an old computer. Accord to a studi conduct by Edith Cowan University, individu and organ alik ar take huge risk by recycl or dispos their old comput hardwar part without make sure the data store is complet erased.

What' At Risk?

More than 300 random hardwar part from Australia, UK, North America, and Germany, were randomli purchas and us to extract data. A bevi of sensit inform wa found on those machin like "payrol information, mobil telephon numbers, copi of invoices, employe name and photos, IP addresses, network information, illicit audio and video files, and financi detail includ bank and credit card account [information]." 1 Imagin how detriment thi could be for a compani if thi inform got into the wrong hands!

Tip To Secur Your Hardwar Donation

Well-intend comput user ar oblivi to the danger that come from improp dispos of comput hardware. It' imper that the averag comput person understand how to prevent these dangers. Here ar a few tip on secur and eras data befor you donate:

* Demagnet the hard-driv with a Type I or Type II "degauss tool". Thi is gener known as "erasure". The process chang the magnet align of your data so that it magnet domain point elsewhere, make your data indecipherable; similar to how you would dupe a compass. * Using a disk sanit such as Disk Wipe, which will overwrit your origin data with "gibberish" so it, too, will becom indecipherable. * Encrypt file with softwar that provid strong encrypt to protect sensit data, includ spreadsheets, word docs, and email messag and attachments

Protect your Donation, appli Anti-Theft Measures

Compar to the other solutions, encrypt is a more effect and flexibl method of protect document on your hard-drive. Anti-theft measur like encrypt can actual safeguard data while a comput is still in use, ensur that the data is both access to those author and protect at the same time. If a comput get donat without thoroughli demagnet or sanitizing, encrypt add a secur buffer. Thi ensur that the person or organ take your old machin doesn't get ani bonu donat of person or sensit information.

Smart Stewardship

Our societi ha reach a climax never befor achiev in the histori of technolog advancement. Thi should impli a heighten understand of proper care, us and dispos of such technologies. If you'r still itch to get that new comput and discard the old, just rememb that there ar mani thing your old comput know about you. Make sure you know just as much about your old machin and what can result from not secur or clean data off of it. Your charit donat shouldn't result in year of chase your reput or clean up your credit.

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