Securing data on a laptop sent for repair

[Clair]

I have had to send my Acer laptop for repair (dead screen) and it has brought a couple of concerns to mind:

• How should I have secured the data (bank account details, passwords and such) before sending the laptop off for repair?
• I have used Acer's own encryption software to encrypt My Docs. Is that enough? Should I have moved My Docs to a hard drive?
• The place I bought it from has hinted that, should they be unable to repair it, I may be given the choice of either a partial refund or an exchange. In the event of an exchange, how can I ensure the existing data is made inaccessible to potential misuse?
• Are tech people too busy to look at files inside the PCs and laptops sent to them for repair ? Am I worrying over nothing?

Any suggestion welcome... [:)]

[Nick Trollope]

You can't really (at this stage). You will have to trust the technician.

If they can't repair it, make sure that they recover the HDD and fit it to the replacement machine, or remove it and include it as part of your partial refund. The disk can then be fitted into another machine.

My experience is that PC technicians will go through every file on your HDD looking for a "Gary Glitter" moment. I doubt if they would be stupid enough to do anything with bank details (too traceable). When you get the machine back, look through your history and log files to see what they have been doing....

[Danny]

Hi Clair,

my tuppence - it really all depends how much you value your info and/or how paranoid you are. Its a difficult one, as presumably you can't see what is on the hard drive if the computer is not working. It would have been better to remove the hard drive, put it in (or attach to) another machine and copy any sensitive files to another drive. Then wipe the drive to erase it completely - suggested method DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) more info here and also here

This will completely wipe the drive of anything... but there is no absolute security however. The only way to be sure that information is secure is not to write it to a disk in the first place. Failing that, taking apart the hard drive and smashing the platters completely and/or melting is the only way to be pretty sure. That would deter most people from trying to get at your data. Like I said, it all depend on how important your data is to you!

Your last two questions are very interesting. I would either ask for the Hard drive to be put into the new machine if possible or some guarantee of the drive being wiped securely, not just formatted.

Who knows what tech people are like - probably just like anyone else, there will be honest ones and crooked ones. Better in the future not to take any chances.

Most people have no idea that nearly everything on their computers remains accessible for a long time until written over thoroughly. What happens if one's computer is stolen?
If someone really wants to, it is not difficult to find lots of deleted things and passwords etc 

Danny

[Clair]

Thank you both for your input.

Re "the Glitter moment", nothing as controversial on my laptop, just personal info I'd rather not have to share with unscrupulous people...

On the positive side, I have been told the repair has been done (at long last) and the laptop should be ready on Thursday... [:)]

PS: I run CCleaner on a daily basis and have set it to erase files with 7 passes, so I suppose you can call me paranoid![:D]

[AnOther]

Too late now of course Clair and you weren't to know but if you had mentioned that you had a problem I would have been more than happy to try and help you with it.

Even though I might not have been able to fix the machine itself I would almost certainly have been able to take the HD out and safely backup all your data for you.

Same offer goes to anyone in my vicinity W of Cahors who has a PC/Laptop problem BTW.

PM me.

Q: What was the most surprising thing about the Gary Glitter affair ?

A: PC World were able to fix his machine !

[:D][:D][:D]

[Baz]

[quote user="Clair"]

PS: I run CCleaner on a daily basis and have set it to erase files with 7 passes, so I suppose you can call me paranoid![:D]
[/quote]

Clair, like you I use CCleaner daily, I have mine set on Normal File deletion. Can you explain what the secure deletion means as opposed to normal deletion and the number of passes, which is the is the best setting.

Baz

[Clair]

"For the super cautious users we also offer secure file erasing. By

overwriting the files before deleting them, making it impossible to

recover the data."

From what I gather, it's meant to make imposible the recovery of deleted files by overwriting them 7 times before deletion (the normal deletion overwrites once). However, there seems to be a bit of controversy in their own forum as to whether it's actually doing what it says on the tin!

It takes just a little bit longer and I find that setting Firefox to delete its own files on closing helps CCleaner work faster anyway.

For info, the latest version of CCleaner (V2.02.527) now offers a 35 passes option![blink]

No more "Glitter moments"! (not that I ever had any!)

[Baz]

Clair, thanks for you speed reply, I think I will add this setting to my daily run.

Baz

[AnOther]

Don't wish to butt in Baz but...............

Deleting a file does nothing but remove the information on where to find it and then tell the HD that the space occupied by the file is now free for re-use. Eventually it will get written over but that could take days, weeks or even months, during which time the file is easily retrieveable.

The idea of overwriting with several passes is to totally destroy the information so that it cannot be retrieved and it's generally accepted that 7 passes are required to do this but we're talking here military strength security which is obviously completely over the top for the average domestic user.

I sometimes like to draw an analogy between a HD and a book with an index. Using the index you can quickly find anything you want. If you tore the index out and then scattered all the other pages on the floor the information would still be there but you'd have to manually search through the pages to find it.

A common misconception is that formatting a drive destroys the data on it but it doesn't.

Ultimately, there is only way to totally destroy data and that is to strip the HD and physically destroy the platter(s) but even this isn't 100% guaranteed.

There was a famous case a few years back where somebody murdered his wife and police found a flopy disk with incriminating information on it. Somehow the accused got hold of a pair of scissors and cut the disk into small pieces but technicians were able to retrieve enough tiny scraps of information from them to piece back together enough evidence to secure a conviction. In the most simplistic of terms what's inside a HD is only an extension of what's in a floppy and theoretically the same process could be used to reconstruct data from a smashed platter.

Claire, you are paranoid but if it helps you sleep at night............[:D][:D][:D]

[Clair]

[quote user="ErnieY"]The idea of overwriting with several passes is to totally destroy the information so that it cannot be retrieved and it's generally accepted that 7 passes are required to do this but we're talking here military strength security which is obviously completely over the top for the average domestic user.

Claire, you are paranoid but if it helps you sleep at night............[:D][:D][:D]

[/quote]

Told you![:D][:-))]

PS: I had a shredder long before identity theft was on the news and I remove address labels from all packaging before bining it...

[Baz]

ErnieY, thanks for your detailed explanation, so I will stick as I was. I have learnt so much from help and tips on this site over the years, but I am always willing to learn more. I never would have believed in 1996 when I bought my 1st computer that today it would run so much of my every day life. I just cannot imagine what may happen in the next 10 years.

Baz

 

[Clair]

[quote user="Clair"]On the positive side, I have been told the repair has been done (at long last) and the laptop should be ready on Thursday... [:)][/quote]

I have just returned from collecting the laptop and the screen, although looking like a replacement, has died again... [:@]

I have told them on the phone in no uncertain terms that I will not accept another repair and they must offer me a suitable solution in the form of an exchange or a refund. I am now waiting for them to call me back... [6]

Does anyone have any suggestion to make for a suitable replacement make and model?

[tenniswitch]

Sorry, somehow managed to duplicate.

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="ErnieY"]The idea of overwriting with several passes is to totally destroy the information so that it cannot be retrieved and it's generally accepted that 7 passes are required to do this but we're talking here military strength security which is obviously completely over the top for the average domestic user.

Claire, you are paranoid but if it helps you sleep at night............[:D][:D][:D]

[/quote]
Told you![:D][:-))]

PS: I had a shredder long before identity theft was on the news and I remove address labels from all packaging before bining it...[/quote]

I do that, too.  The DH will be surprised to hear that I'm not the only one.[:D]

[Martin963]

Sitting nursing the beginnings of a cold,  (and contemplating the gloomy wet weather the other side of the window) I thought I'd test that CCleaner mentioned on this thread.   There is some "sensitive" info on my computer (mainly financial) which I would prefer to remove properly.

I have been using CCleaner as recommended on this thread in conjunction with a program called Undelete PLUS which is freeware off the internet.  And as far as I can see CCleaner DOESN'T work,  even in extremis on the 35 pass setting.    What I did was to undelete various test files back to a folder on my hard disk,  then send them to the recycle bin,  then use CCleaner to empty the recycle bin.

On several tries (mainly on the 7 pass setting but once in desperation on the 35 pass) a group of jpeg's are still recoverable using Undelete PLUS.   Similar for an Excel file.

I should stress that computers aren't my forte but as far as I can see I have done what in theory needed doing and it hasn't worked, thus confirming what Clair read on the CCleaner forum.

So does anyone have any other recommendations for a "real" clean up prog?

[AnOther]

Doesn't surprise me at all Martin.

When conventional wisdom says 7 passes are enough even for goverment and MOD file destruction why would you want to do 35 times. Sounds like the "logic" I used to encounter in the Middle East where if XX is good XXX must be better. For all the relevance it has 35 could just as well have been the number of the programme writers house or his age.

For a freebie CCleaner is useful enough in it's own right for cleaning up a bit of leftover debris here and there but for secure file deletion, as Martin has discovered, it's actually worse than useless because of the false sense of security it gives you.

In accordance with that immutable law of consumerism - you get what you pay for !

I have literally just waved goodbye to Claire who has been here for the last 5 hours whilst I completely wiped her 100gb HD to US DoD standard using KILLDISK and if that is the level of file destruction you want then that's what you have to do and that's how long it can typically take.

 

 

[Martin963]

Thanks ernie

Actually it did occur to me that maybe there's a slight fault in my methodology.

I used "undelete" to restore some files (which I had previously deleted convetionally) back to a folder,  from where I moved them to the recycle bin and then used CCleaner to empty the bin.   Now it may be that "undelete" restores files by making a copy of the original "deleted" file which it then places where you've asked it to,  but LEAVES the (unlabelled) deleted file where it was.   If that's the case then of course deleting securely the "restored" file would not kill off the original deleted file.

Or something like that.

What I shall now research is whether "fresh" files are properly deleted.

[Danny]

 Hi Martin,

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ download eraser from here. It is pretty secure. I have not been able to recover files once wiped

Use with caution and read all the help files and the website thoroughly.

the simplest way to use it is to right click on the file and select erase. Do not delete files you want to erase.

Don't forget that there is no completety secure way of wiping data. It depends on how much you want to wipe it and how hard somone wants to try to recover stuff. That is the nature of computing that most people don't realise. Better not to write on hard drives in the first place if it is very sensitive data

Happy computing

Danny

[Martin963]

I have a hunch that I've found the problem,  ie exactly what I describe above.

Files that have not been "recovered" do in fact delete properly so that the "undelete"programme doesn't see them.   That's not to say they aren't recoverable by a crim'nal, but it's better than nothing.

Isn't it nice when the forum leads to face to face meetings.   I hope E & C had a pleasant time!

[Martin963]

Thanks Danny for that.    I now keep financial stuff on a USB drive which can be removed from the computer and stored elsewhere when necessary.

[Christine Animal]

But even when it has been removed from the computer, isn't there still a trace of it ?  I wondered about this when mine went for repair, do they bother to look at everything, shouldn't they be under the "secret professionnel" as doctors, etc. ?

I mentioned this to someone French who had just had her computer repaired and she had also mentioned it to the repairer.  His answer was "we can see everything !"   [:-))]

 

[AnOther]

Here's an oblique view of the subject.

Most laptops have a relatively easy way of removing the HD so assuming the machine is out of warranty buy a cheap laptop HD and install it instead of the original.

Reinstall the OS from the recovery CD and send it off like that.

You can always get an external USB box to put it in afterwards to make a useful backup device so it's not wasted money.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]

But even when it has been removed from the computer, isn't there still a trace of it ?  I wondered about this when mine went for repair, do they bother to look at everything, shouldn't they be under the "secret professionnel" as doctors, etc. ?

I mentioned this to someone French who had just had her computer repaired and she had also mentioned it to the repairer.  His answer was "we can see everything !"   [:-))]

[/quote]Programmes like Word and Excel have a feature called Autosave which saves a copy of your work in the background without you knowing about it. You can turn it of in the options but only if you know it's there in the first place of course.

Quite often other programmes keep temporary files on the HD and also there is a thing called the "Swap File" which is constantly being written to and can be read if you know how.

The bottom line is that there can be no guarantee that actually saving to a USB stick hasn't left recoverable traces on the machine.

As for repairers techs observing the ethics of a professional, you must be having a larf...........by definition most of them will have one foot in the geek camp and simply wouldn't be able to resist a nose around just because they can.

[Christine Animal]

Yes Ernie, that's what I thought !  So if your computer breaks down, lose your data, put it in the attic, buy another and so on.  Then when you die someone will be able to find out all about you and make a lot of money writing a book !

 

[Clair]

[quote user="ErnieY"]I have literally just waved goodbye to Claire... [/quote]

Thanks to Ernie, I am now confident my HDD has been scrubbed clean!